He was aware.
That’s all he was, at this point, just aware, in the basest form, that he existed.
He wasn’t exactly floating, there was nothing of him to float, and nothing to float in. It was just him, himself, and the knowledge of himself.
Time seemed slippery, as if some of his thoughts galloped along, tripping over themselves in recursive loops, “I think, therefore I am,” over and over and over again, basking in the knowledge that he Was. On the other hand, other parts of his awareness seemed slow, oozing along like thick molasses of ideas, thoughts, memories. Memories? What memories? He felt a gap in his knowledge of himself, gaping absences in his awareness.
It was disconcerting, given that all he was aware of was himself, and even that seemed lacking some very fundamental details. Who was he? Where was he? Did he have a body? The last thought troubled him the most, the idea that he had had a body, but no longer did. He supposed that it may be traumatic to be removed from a physical form, but given that he had no reference of what having a physical body would be like, and at this point, didn’t really have a firm grasp on the concept of ‘physical’, he supposed that was probably something to deal with later.
“Look at that, see?” a thin voice echoed through him. “Brain activity. There!”
Oh, hello! he thought.
“See! There it was again!” the voice echoed, louder, closer. “The connections look stable, he’s responding to stimuli,”
“Spirits, you’re right,” another voice, deeper, richer. “This is earlier than we anticipated, but let’s not… -selves. Put hi… ank… want to…. sults…” The voice faded in and out, and he felt his awareness shrinking.
Oh dear he thought, even as his thinking slowed, quietened. I was quite enjoying existing…
————
“James Matthew Dawson, born 18th February 1994, died 21st September 2026, approximately,” Assistant Technician Kerrin said, gesturing to the holo above the table. The image was of a man in his early thirties, taken from some form of identity document. “His remains were discovered by one of the teams exploring the ruins of Manchester city centre”
Kerrin waved her hand, and several images coalesced above the long black glass table, replacing the rotating bust of the man. Images of crumbling skyscrapers, dry canal beds with teams of suited figures digging through the detritus, and a handful of images of a mummified corpse, being excavated, packaged, autopsied. The Director looked on, impassively, as the twelve men and women around the table, the Firsts, and their adjuncts murmured in discomfort.
“Records were hard to come by, we identified him by running a DNA profile. We matched several citizens, extant and deceased, as descendants, and backtraced their common ancestry to find a male matching the criteria. Male, early thirties, around the historic North West of England,”
A vast sprawling family tree floated up, dispelling the images of the dead man, and the dead city. “My thanks to the First Historian, the First Archivist, and their adjuncts for their help,” Kerrin nodded at the two identical men. The twins both looked to be in their early twenties, but Kerrin knew them both to be approaching their two-hundredth year.
The Director frowned and leaned forward. “21st September ’26, that was only a few days Before, how were we able to recover him?”
Kerrin smiled thinly.
“As far as we can ascertain, Dawson was reported missing on the 23rd September by the mother of his daughter, one Erin McGuire. We think he drowned in the canal, and somehow sank into the mud at the bottom. His skull was fractured, and we found debris and damage in his throat, heart, and lungs, consistent with drowning” Kerrin paused. “As we all know, two days later…” She didn’t bother finishing her sentence.
“As such, there was no effort to locate him by the authorities of the time. There were more pressing concerns, so he was declared dead, and the family moved on. We think the water protected the remains from the worst of the heat, the mud and silt in the canal encapsulated him in an anoxic environment, and the radiation… sterilised the area.”
There was a morose silence.
“This does beg the question,” the First Medic said softly. “Why do we not let him rest?”
“Well, the advances we have made, in nanosurgery, psychosurgery, biomechanics-“
“Yes, yes,” Medic waved her hand. “It is impressive, Technician Kerrin, there is no doubt of that. But this man, he had at least one child. He lived a life in the 21st century. Would it do him any good to be woken up now? Thrust into a future he will not understand, told his child, his grandchildren, are long dead and we can tell him nothing about them?”
She shook her head sadly.
“I can see no possible benefit to continuing this endeavour. The advances that you and your team have made are far in excess of our expectations, and are to be lauded, but I see only trauma, for all of us, should we go ahead.”
Archivist and Historian bristled, and glanced at each other. “We would respectfully disagree with Medics conclusion,” they chimed, in unison. “We believe this man represents an untapped vein of knowledge, he will have insights into the Before that we have only been able to guess at.”
The First Mother raised her hand. “I would also remind First Council of our current situation. Our gene pool is small, and our Breeding Pools are stagnating. Despite our best efforts, more and more children are born sick every brood. Technician Kerrin, how many living relatives does this man have?”
Kerrin consulted her pad quickly. “Six, Mother.”
“Six,” Mother mused. “Can any of us say we have as few? All of us are cousins of some kind. It may be that the genetic material in this man may give us some respite.”
The Director mused, leaning back in his chair as his adjunct handed him a drink. “First Engineer? You have been uncharacteristically silent on the matter.”
Engineer looked up from her pad, non-plussed. She shrugged.
“This is an ethics issue,” she waved at the holo-image of the man. “He can’t teach us anything we don’t know about mathematics, science, technology. If it’s a matter of his memories, copy his engrams and give them to the twins. If it’s a matter of genes, excise his gonads and give them to Mother,” she grinned at the uncomfortable look shared by the Director and the twins.
Kerrin cleared her throat. “If it please the council, James has already shown signs of complex consciousness. He has awareness, and has communicated via psych interface.”
Kerrin cringed as Medic stiffened, eyes narrowing and nostrils flaring. The Director raised an eyebrow. “Thank you, Assistant Technician Kerrin. Please forward copies of your files to us. You may leave while First Council deliberates.”
———–
Kerrin rubbed her eyes as she made her slow way back to her lab, fighting back tears. She slapped her hand against the palm reader, and the door hissed open.
And there he was. James. He’d been decanted from his growth tank several months ago, and had been lying in a medcot, while his body and mind were prepared for his reawakening. She pulled up a stool and sat next to him, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, his autonomic functions still being managed by the medcot cradling him.
He was big, taller than average for his era, and even more so now. Humans these days tended towards shorter, slighter statures. James was, well, ‘robust’ was how one of the other Assistant Technicians had referred to him, compared to the more gracile, elfin, build of modern humans. Freckles dotted his forearms and dusted his face, under his patchy russet stubble.
Catheters and tubes ran in and out of him, removing waste, delivering the final chemical regimen she’d designed to prepare his body to wake. A nest of sensors rested on his bare scalp, monomolecular wires rooting through his brain, stimulating neuron growth, and receiving data from his brain. She checked the readouts out of habit, her fingers numb.
Four years. Four years of her life, devoted to this man, and now so close to her triumph, it was about to be taken away. “I’m sorry, James.” Kerrin whispered, stroking his cheek with her finger. His cheek was rough with stubble, he’d need shaving again soon. She choked back a sob.
The decision had come, his engrams were to be encoded and packaged, a copy to be sent to the Archive and the Historia each. A tissue sample to be taken and provided to The Crèche, not the whole apparatus, as was so gleefully suggested by First Engineer. The “remaining biological material”, as the report put so clinically, was to be stripped of genetic information, repurposed as raw material for future cloning cycles. James, this person on the cot, was to be mulched into slurry, to grow another body, for someone First Council deemed deserving.
Kerrin wiped her tears away, and set to the task, gently, almost lovingly removing the monitors and contact fluid exchangers. With slow deliberate movements, she picked up a tissue sampler, and pressed it against one of James testicles. The microscopic needle scooped up a handful of cells, storing them in a fluid suspension. She set the vial in the refrigerator. Had James been conscious, he wouldn’t have even felt a pinch. She set the psyche interface to run a copying program, and when it was done, to remove the support for James’ still growing brain, relinquish control of his autonomic functions, and to let him stop breathing and slip away, and retreated to her own cot to cry herself to sleep
———————
Kerrin was woken by the gentle chiming of the medcot, telling her that things hadn’t exactly gone to plan.
Kerrin rubbed her eyes, and stood up blearily, checking her pad. “Oh spirits…” She gasped. She rushed to the cot. The medcot had retracted itself, but James was still breathing, his heart was still beating. His body had taken over its own autonomic functions. “No, no, no, no, no” she moaned. “It’s too quick, it should have been a slow transition, it’s too much, too sudden.” Kerrin panicked.
The medcot sang, and Kerrin frantically scanned the results spooling upwards. Heart rate and blood pressure elevated, breathing a little erratic, brain activity was all over the place, high cortisol and adrenaline, but no sign of any failure. He was coping, adapting.
The original parts of James’ brain, almost five hundred years old, rehydrated, rejuvenated, and repaired, had grown and accepted the flash-cloned replacement neural tissue, but there were still gaps where the synapses hadn’t been built yet, chasms that hadn’t been bridged. She took James’ hand in her own, and sat, watching the swirling chaos of his brain activity readings, slowly building and brightening, as his brain balanced the load.
————-
James. James. James. James Dawson. The name rattled around in his head, shaking loose memories. He hurt. His head hurt. He had a head, something he hadn’t had the last few times he’d, well, been.
His heart skipped, as his mind unfolded, his awareness spreading, his skin prickling. Skin! He’d felt something, a touch, a whisper of a voice. He tried to speak, say her name, but he couldn’t remember it, couldn’t remember her. He knew there was a “her” though.
It felt different. The last few times, he’d been pulled to the surface, dragged into awareness, to speak to someone, talk, force language out through decrepit narrow pathways, but this was him swimming up himself, breaching that surface under his own steam. He pushed harder, trying to pull the broken disparate parts of his bruised self together, feeling the pressure on his back from whatever it was he was lying on, the air playing over his skin, the weight, the sheer mass of his physical existence, screaming at him.
His fingers twitched. He took a breath. And another.
It wasn’t right. He wasn’t right, there were parts missing, pieces that didn’t fit. He moved, but he wasn’t moving. His eyes were open, there were shapes and colours, and noises, but they didn’t make sense, it didn’t make sense. He was him, but only bits of him, and the bits that were there didn’t fit right, and it hurt, and he wanted her, where is she? Is that her? The hand in his? Is it her?
—-
The hand on hers tightened, and she squealed, looking down. His eyes were open, unfocused, his mouth was moving but not making words. Kerrin stared. James grunted. She glanced at his neural map. There were still black spots, prefrontal cortex, some of his hippocampus were slow to respond, not quite integrated yet.
James blinked slowly, and his eyes came to focus on Kerrin’s. He sat up, turning to face her. He still wasn’t talking. “James…” Kerrin whispered, touching his face. She glanced down and blushed furiously, obviously his peripheral systems were functioning perfectly.
He stood, looking at Kerrin, but seeing someone else. He towered over her, his erection pressing flat against her stomach.
“J-James, you’ve been a-asleep f-for a while-” Kerrin stumbled, until he kissed her.
It felt like the world froze when his lips crashed into hers. He was hungry, uninhibited, and it had been what, two years since she’d been touched like that. Two years poring over this man’s body and mind, and she’d be fooling herself if she tried to say she didn’t love him, even a little. Bit by bit, her objectivity had been eroded the more time she spent with him, even as a comatose body in a tank.
So, she leaned into the kiss, pressing her slim body against him, sending a subvocal comment to her implant to record every second of this. First Council had wanted to take him away from her, she wanted to keep any part of him she could.
Besides, she thought with a perverse thrill, it’s not as if I can stop him from doing what he wants to me. She ran her hand up his bare chest, taking his lip between her teeth as they kissed, the heat building in her core. His broad hands roved over her body, hungrily searching for a way under her clothes. She squealed as he gave up, and resorted to tearing, ripping the flimsy paper scrubs. Kerrin broke the kiss briefly to discard the shredded remnants of her clothing, and do away with her underwear, and launched herself back into him, goosebumps prickling her flesh as their skin touched, his hands squeezing her backside, that throbbing insistent erection burning into her flat stomach.
She reached down, her slim fingers skating over the sensitive skin of his cock, and he groaned, low and guttural.
He picked her up like nothing, and she wrapped her legs around him, their mouths locked together, tongues questing and probing. He felt more animal than man as his chest heaved, the hair ticking her breasts, grunting and moaning as they kissed, and suddenly Kerrin felt James at her entrance, his swollen head pushing apart her folds, and finding the wetness between them. She moaned desperately as he slid himself home, hot, hard, long, and thick. She gasped as he filled her, stretched her, bigger than anyone she’d had before. She shuddered as he began to thrust, biting his shoulder to stifle the cries of pleasure. He turned them, pushed her up against the wall, still bearing her weight, still inside her. Each thrust forced out a whimper from her, and she lost herself in the pleasure, feeling the heat build. She could feel every contour of him inside her, as he fucked her with no restraint and no reason.
“Oh, fuck, James!” she cried out, feeling herself clench as his hips bucked, the tension inside her building like so many rubber bands, the smell of his sweat, his mouth on her neck, fucking her, filling her, until they snapped, and she cried out again, wordless noises of ecstasy as her orgasm broke over her, spasming madly around his cock until he groaned and twitched, and released his own, shuddering as he emptied his balls into her dripping cunt.
Spent, he released her. Kerrin folded as her feet hit the ground, her legs like jelly. She sat, slumped against the wall, catching her breath, and watched James stagger back, cock glistening with Kerrin’s juices, and slowly deflating. She hadn’t managed to get a good look at it before, at least not fully erect, but even at half mast, she was amazed she’d taken it.
She forced herself to her feet, and took James’ arm. His eyes still had that wild unfocused look, and Kerrin cursed herself for not sending an adjunct for help immediately. It could have overstressed him, his endocrine system hadn’t been fully tested, the exercise was strenuous to say the least, not to mention the intense neural activity during sex. His eyes fluttered as he sagged backwards, Kerrin guiding him towards the medcot. His jaw moved again “… Erin…” He slurred, as he lay back.
“Hush, James, lie down now,” she said, gently pushing him down. His eyes fluttered closed, and he sighed.
As he slipped into unconsciousness, the medcot chimed disapproval at his general state. “Oh hush,” she snapped at the cot.
She could still feel him inside her, the memory of him. She put a finger between her legs, felt his sticky seed there, slowly leaking out of her, running down her thigh. She closed her eyes and sank to the floor, her back against the sleek, curved surface of the medcot, her legs splayed.
She opened her eyes and froze. First Engineer was stood by the door, an eyebrow raised, hip cocked, and a pad in her hand.
“Well now,” she said, her voice crisp and light. “I believe this is what First Medic may call a ‘gross breach of ethics'”
