The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #1, Inception (4 page)

Two had proto-viruses and primitive single-celled microbes. One was totally barren.
None were the source of the radio transmissions detected by the D'lralu home defense network. The warrior scout would continue his search and destroy mission in the next star system... A yellow midlife star some 4.2 light years away. He began the calculations. It would take his massive onboard computers less than two weeks to make the necessary computations.

***

"Enough... You have poked me and prodded me for two weeks. I have answered every question you have asked. I've taken more written tests in the last two weeks than during my entire doctorate program at Notre Dame!" Catherine Kimbridge was not a happy camper. She was dressed in the plain coveralls United Space Command had insisted she wear when they confiscated her United States Air Force uniform.

Admiral Faragon steepled his hands. "Lady, I don't know who or even what you are
but you most certainly are not who you say you are... Lt. Commander Catherine Kimbridge has been dead since I was a ten year old boy. I went to a high school named after her. She published exactly two papers in her brief career and they are still considered seminal works in hyper-field dynamics. You are most certainly not her... So just answer my questions honestly and we can all go home!"

"Admiral, what can I say to convince
you I am who I say?"

"Frankly dear, not a damn thing"

"Then Admiral, why am I even here?" Cat stood up and leaned over the table to face down a man for whom she was rapidly losing respect and patience. Her face was red with barely controlled rage.

Admiral Faragon simply said dryly, "Sit down Lt. Commander."

"Lt. Commander? In two weeks that's the first time you have acknowledged my previous rank."

The Admiral looked at one of the recording cameras positioned in the corners of the interview room. She swore she saw him briefly smile as he said "Bring it in."

Before Cat could ask what 'it' was, the solitary door to their room opened and a familiar looking man who seemed to be a forty year old version of Dr. Robert Kimbridge -her father- entered the room. Only after taking a close look at him did Cat realize this was a robotic android and not an actual human being. The level of detail and the sophistication on the animatronics was outstanding... if somewhat disturbing.

"Lt. Catherine Kimbridge, allow me to introduce your father... Or rather what is left of him."

"Hello Cat" the mechanism said. "I am Bob." Seeing her eyebrows rise and her lips twitch the robot anticipated her question and added "The essence of your father’s memories have been placed in this shell."

"I don't understand.
You're my father? You are able to transfer your consciousness into an AI now?"

"Regrettably no" Bob responded. "I am at best a crude simulation of your father.
I have a significant portion of his memories and handcrafted logic algorithms that act on that data to provide a rough approximation of the response the real Robert Kimbridge would have made. Like any AI we can currently construct I lack the ability to fully intuit creative solutions. This is where I think you and I differ."

Cat looked confused. "Why go to all the effort?
If a total transfer was not possible then what was the reason for making what is at best a personality emulator?"

Bob answered quite simply... "
You… A chance for your father to say goodbye to you… He could never, in his heart, accept that you were gone."

The Admiral leaned forward and put his elbows on the small round table that separated the three of them. "Your father, Robert Kimbridge and his team were working on a
very important project when he suffer a massive heart attack..."

"About ten years ago... I read the reports on the Times Daily News archives a few months back.
How does any of this having anything to do with you suddenly believing I'm Catherine Kimbridge?"

The Admiral stood and walked over to her side of the table. "You have to admit your story is a fantastic one. You encounter a pair of alien spacecraft on the maiden voyage of the famous ESX Arizona. They destroy each other after disabling your ship. You save one at the cost of your own life
and in turn they give you a new, seemingly enhanced body. You have to admit... If I were writing fiction I'd be hard pressed to come up with a wilder story."

"...
and yet you believe me now... But an hour ago you weren't sure. Why?"

Bob answered her first. "There are two reasons. First, you did something I can't do. You got angry.
Oh, I can feign anger but for the same reason an actor who cannot internalize a role is rarely believable, strong emotions elude me. Second..."

"We have one of the vessels that attacked you... Or significant pieces of it anyway" Faragon added with a wink and a smile.

"So let me get this straight," Catherine continued, "You believe my story now because I got angry?"

"We always believed you" the Admiral said. "The real question was
really one of 'What' you were... Not 'who' you were. To be honest, I'm still not sure how to answer that question but my medics tell me you are biologically human. Your cognitive function tests correlate very closely with what we know of the original Catherine Kimbridge. Your aptitude tests are off the scales... but then, so were hers... And you respond outside the bounds of simulated personalities like our friend Bob here." He paused to look more closely at her. "I can't fully answer what you are, especially in light of the alien nanotechnology in your system, but I am satisfied that you are close enough in every measurable way to the Lt. Commander, that you are in all practicality her."

"Does that mean I get my uniform back?" Catherine asked with a grin.

The door to the shuttle closed
and Cat, along with about a dozen fellow passengers, sat back in her white leather seat as the craft readied itself for the trip from Houston Texas to USC Orbital One, as the massive 60,000 person city in space was called.  Normally one of the four international space elevators would be used to travel into space, but when time was of the essence, nothing beat the speed of a direct shuttle.

Orbital One was a command center for the United Space Command and a massive research center and shipyard in space. Earth’s first truly interstellar spaceships were currently under construction within the massive orbiting facility. 

Cat tugged at the corner of her blouse. She had not yet been allowed to wear her uniform and in point of fact she would have felt even more a relic if she had. The United States no longer maintained separate armed forces from the now united world government.

She fully understood the need for
the change. With the discovery of a crashed D'lralu ship on Phoebes, combined with the knowledge that at least some extraterrestrials visiting our solar system were coming to Earth armed to the teeth – the world had decided a radical rethink amongst the world’s superpowers was in order.

The United Nations had become the United World Congress. The World Court had become the Supreme World Court and a term-limited World President had been elected. Each member state had contributed technology, resources and personnel to the newly formed United Space Command. English was formally established as the language of the government. Most high ranking military officers and government officials also learned Mandarin and French as secondary languages.

Cat had recently learned that the project her father had been working on was related to dissecting and understanding the fundamental systems onboard the recovered D'lralu wreckage. Today she would be visiting the research site with Bob. Over the past several days she had been getting used to working with the AI that housed what remained of her father’s memories.

It was an unsettling experience.
In so many ways Bob was her father. His mannerisms initially matched her father’s to the “T” but after just a few days she started to notice they matched too well. There was none of the spontaneity that characterizes true human interaction. Bob would wink on cue every time a certain situation occurred. It lacked the genuine fondness that was her real father. It made the task of working with Bob uncomfortable.

The trip to the station was over almost before it began. The scientist in Cat still marveled at the advancements that had been made in her fifty year absence. It was somewhat gratifying to know that some of them (like the inertial damping field that allowed a ‘30G’ acceleration into orbit to feel like a slightly bumpy car ride) had been a direct result of some of her decades old hyper-field theory work.

Still she felt grossly under qualified, despite her doctorate in physics, to be helping with the D'lralu project. Admiral Faragon, who was rapidly becoming a close friend, felt her unique experience with the alien craft while it was operational might be of assistance. She had her doubts but it felt good to be working on something while the military decided what to do with an obsolete soldier/scientist.

When her small shuttle docked
and the doors opened she exited into the main debarkation/embarkation corridor and looked desperately for a familiar face. It was not the first time she had been to Orbital One but it was her first time unaccompanied.  While she was waiting for her chaperon to appear she took a moment to take in the view.

Orbital One was a bit of a throwback to an earlier age... A lot like
her she thought glumly. Human science had mastered artificial gravity over two decades ago but Orbital One was designed and mostly complete before the advancements predicted by hyper-field theory could be put into practice. As a result, Orbital One used centripetal forces to simulate the effects of gravity. The result were long corridors that sloped upward in the distance.

In the center of the station was a large open-air arboretum complete with small birds and insects. The idea of birds, in what was a fractional-g environment, seemed strange but apparently the birds adapted
very quickly and did acrobatics never seen on Earth. The birds were necessary to control the insect population, which in turn were necessary for the tree's health. The trees were a secondary O2 source and, more importantly, a CO2 sink.

 
None of the organics were technically necessary but countless psychological studies had shown that humans functioned better when they were not isolated to sterile environments. Since Orbital One was to be a city and not just a station, the decision was made to add the open air parks.

As she was watching the sky full of trees and marveling at the irony, she was jostled by another onlooker. The man was dressed in a full red robe common among
the clergy of a new Christian sect called the Order of the Way. The man had a full red beard to match his robe. Catherine couldn't help notice both the smile and look of wonder as he took in his surroundings.

"Quite a view" she said.

"Indeed" he replied and then took another look at her. "You would be Catherine Kimbridge..." it was not a question but a statement.

Somewhat surprised she took a second look at him "And you would be...?"

"Oh how rude of me... My wife is always saying I'm too rude... Not good for a pastor and all." He reached out a hand to shake hers.

Cat tentatively took it into her own and shook his hand. When it seemed he was not going to finish answering her question she prompted him again "...
and you are?"

"Oh... Right! I'm Dr. Ken Kirkland... Chief engineer on the Bowman."

"I thought you were a Pastor?"

"Oh I am... I'm a geek with a passion for God. I have a doctorate in theology
as well as physics... And I might add, like you, I'm a Notre Dame man... Well not that you're a man... I mean..." His faced flushed red as he sputtered.