Greyla awakened from hibernation. She had timed her magiton unit to reactivate her personality file when their spaceship, Sora, reached the Dezba star system. Isolated from everyone else, she busied herself for a while learning things she never seemed to find time for, but always wanted to do. Previously a marine biologist on the planet of Beldora, computer programming seemed a more useful skill for digital life in a cyber world.

She was not prepared for the long years of social isolation. Greyla was empathic and could read the emotions of those around her. Being truly alone for the first time was a revelation. She had not realized how quiet it would be, not only without familiar faces, but without the background feelings of those around her.

A few years into the journey she decided to hibernate for the remainder of the trip. Now they had arrived, and she was excited to join the others to celebrate. Widhbo, had put the ship on emergency power to conserve energy while in transit. Once the ship was fully energized again, the personas hibernating in digital storage could take physical form. A few mortal crew members had remained on board, though most, including herself, had elected to stay on Beldora, leaving only their cyber copies on board the Sora.

The ship’s power grid could manifest a holographic representation of an individual in the form of a digital program. At a higher energy cost, it could make them a solid plasma projection. It was not possible for a projected entity to leave ship’s energy grid which extended over the interior rooms and passageways. While in either of these forms, programs could interact with one another as well as any mortal individuals still living on board. The illusion of plasma projection was so real, so substantial, it was hard to tell the difference.

She shook the blur of stagnation from her mind and inspected her digitally created world. Everything seemed to be in proper order to the last detail. Her room was as she left it with a big canopied, bed and stone fireplace. She followed rays of sunlight shining through a tall archway which led to her private garden. At the edge of the garden was a door which would permit her to leave the digital room and enter a passageway of the actual ship beyond.

A quick survey of external systems showed the ship to be operating below optimum power. Greyla could only obtain limited data from inside her magiton unit and decided to go outside to learn more. To save power she opted for the more efficient hologram form instead of solid. She could tell immediately that something was off when the emotional turmoil of the ship invaded her senses.

Greyla was not prepared for what she felt or saw. A handful of crew members were walking about in a dazed state. They exhibited a mixture of emotions ranging from cold fear and dread to anger and aggression. Some were void of emotion entirely, appearing to be in shock. She couldn’t tell which ones were projections from those which might be mortal. Before she could work up the courage to approach anyone, a fight broke out down the hall from her location.

The conflict was between two men who looked identical to one another. One man pulled a knife on the other. The weapon drew blood and Greyla knew the victim was a mortal, not a projection. The injured person fought back, wrestled the knife from his attacker, and plunged it into the other man’s chest. There was no blood this time.

She had just witnessed a fight between a human crew member and his duplicate, a plasma projection from the ship. The projected program flickered and dissipated. The mortal man collapsed and fell to the floor. The ship’s grid responded by absorbing his body in a gruesome display of efficiency.

The sight of it was nauseating, made even worse due to her empathic connection. She felt the man’s pain and terror. Greyla ran in no particular direction just to leave the scene and clear her head. She needed to confer with another person and decided to look for someone acting normally, whoever they might be.

Anyone but Jejliard that is. He had already been acting strangely before they all went into hibernation. A cyber version of Jejliard had put the cyber version of his own son, Tajlon, on trial for murder and found him guilty. Tajlon either had his program deactivated or was locked up in a prison cell by now.

She trusted Hal, the chief naval engineer, more than anyone. He had been her lifelong friend, more recently her lover. Perhaps together they could sort out what was going on and stop this madness, but she had no idea where to find him.

Their alien companion, Widhbo, was a little nuts and tended to live in his own world, but he was captain of the ship. As an energy being from another dimension, he did not need to hibernate. He would know how to deal with the renegade programs and not fall victim to any hostilities.

She headed toward the control room, hoping Widhbo would be there as it was his responsibility to pilot the ship. As she rounded a corner in the passageway, a throaty snarl from up ahead caused her to freeze in place. A sleek black leopard had cornered someone at the end of the hallway.

There was only one leopard on board, Nova. Nova was a hybrid of animal and technology with a computer chip implanted in his brain. The leopard in front of her was twice Nova’s size and Greyla surmised it must be another program generated by the ship using Nova’s data file.

The man threw something across the floor to distract the animal long enough for him to make a dash through a doorway. Nova gave chase with a blood curdling growl. Greyla rushed past the doorway and on toward the control room, only to find it was empty. She locked the door and sat down to think.

The lights flickered and the room went dark. Perhaps she should have stayed in her magiton unit and waited for Widhbo. It had its own power supply. If the ship’s grid went down while she was outside of it, her program would dissipate and everything she had just witnessed would not be recorded. Greyla wasn’t sure if her magiton unit would know to bring her back online again. There was a lot she didn’t know about this strange new cyber world they had been thrust into when leaving their home planet behind. It was beginning to look like a mistake.

Finally, the lights came back on, but the ship had gone to emergency power. The low lighting had a strange greenish hue. Greyla unlocked the door and peered out. There was no sign of any activity. She decided to make a run for it back to her magiton unit.