Chapter 14: Birth of Steel

June 2, 2183 AD, Sunguard Research and Development Division, Mars, Solaris system

She opened her eyes, then immediately closed them again.

The harsh light streaming from the lumen plates mounted on the ceiling had overwhelmed the photoreceptive cells at the backs of her retinas. As she waited for them to adjust their gain, she contemplated the sensations surrounding her.

Her skin enjoyed the way the air in the room slowly drifted over her at a comfortable temperature of 22.14 degrees Celsius, while her nose delighted in the faint, flowery fragrance of a woman’s deodorant, along with the molecular weights of dimethylpolysiloxane, sodium dichloroisocyanurate, hexabromocyclododecane, and a hundred other compounds swirling in the air around her.

“It’s all right. Take your time.”

The voice was soft and kind.

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes again.

A stream of photons assaulted her vision. X-rays, ultraviolet, and infrared light mingled with the wavelengths of the spectrum commonly called “visible,” forming 16,383 distinct primary and secondary colors, magnitudes more than the seven colors biological Terrans could perceive.

Standing before her was a woman approximately thirty-six and a half years old with deep brown skin and straight black hair, which she wore in a long pony tail behind her head. She was dressed in a gray jacket and matching pants, each trimmed with a thin red stripe running from top to bottom along the sides of her uniform.

“Don’t be afraid. Do you know who you are?” the woman asked.

At first, she intended to reply, “No,” but the moment she opened her mouth to speak, a memory surfaced, and she chose to articulate that instead.

“NA-01,” she said. “Sunguard Special Agent. Codename Avor Ameir.”

How did she know?

She had no memory of ever learning what a Special Agent was, and yet she knew both that and what her own role within the Sunguard was.

More memories surfaced without any conscious effort.

The reason she knew her identity was that the information had been uploaded into her memory during her creation. She knew not only that she was a biot, but exactly what a biot was.

Avor looked at the Black woman standing in front of her.

Elizabeth Mbenge, she remembered.

In her mind’s eye, she could see the faces of every active Special Agent. She knew who they were, what they looked like, and what their current missions were.

“Can you sit up?” an Etarian standing to the left of the hard, green bed she was lying on asked.

Dr. Tarfel tot mascham, she remembered.

The young biot swung herself upright in a single smooth motion with a precision that would have made any ballet dancer jealous.

How could she anticipate what would make a ballet dancer jealous?

The answer came to her immediately, just as she had expected. The knowledge had been given to her during her creation.

What even was ballet?

That answer came as well. In the inner sanctum of her mind, she remembered the beautiful melodies of Swan Lake alongside the mathematically precise notes that produced them. She knew every tone, every rhythm, every movement of the dancers performing their graceful art. The music and the elegance moved her almost to tears. She delighted in the feeling every bit as much as she appreciated the raw data.

Focus, Avor.

Looking down at her own uniform, she saw that it resembled Elizabeth’s without being identical. They shared the same gray color and red stripes, but while the other Special Agent wore a jacket and pants, hers was a one-piece jumpsuit with two slash pockets below the waist.

There were other differences as well.

Elizabeth Mbenge was 163.2 centimeters tall, within half a centimeter of Avor’s own height. They shared the same face and the same voice. But where the biological woman standing before her was well trained and heavily muscled, her own body was thin, almost spindly by comparison.

And yet Avor knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the muscles in her own arms were at least ten times more powerful than those of her predecessor, and that her titanium bones were twenty times stronger.

“Try to calm down, Avor,” Dr. tot mascham said, her soft voice clocking in at 56.2 decibels. “I know you’re overwhelmed right now. Your mind can’t yet separate what’s important from what isn’t. But you’re going to be all right. You’re not in any danger. In time, you’ll adapt and learn to ignore the sensory inputs you don’t currently need to concern yourself with. What you’re feeling now is perfectly normal. The mind of every intelligent computer I’ve brought online has responded the way yours is.”

Avor tried to slow her breathing, but her body didn’t seem to respond. Her lungs drew in air in short, shallow breaths. She knew perfectly well she didn’t need the oxygen, but her brain still reacted as though she did. Even though it was made from biotic cells, its structure was still mostly identical to that of a biological brain.

“Her heart’s racing,” Special Agent Mbenge pointed out. “One hundred sixty-eight beats per minute. It’s not going down.”

The Etarian scientist didn’t seem overly concerned.

“Physically, that’s not a problem. Her circulatory system is only used to transport nutrients and silicone oil to her organs. Whether her heart is standing still or beating two hundred times per minute is largely irrelevant, as long as it beats every now and then over the long term. But I’m sure the sensation still frightens her.”

Turning to Avor, Dr. tot mascham continued, “There’s no need to be afraid. You’re not going to die.”

She wasn’t so sure about that.

Her entire brain screamed that she was in mortal danger.

“She’s not reacting like I thought she would,” Mbenge remarked. “She’s so… human. Vulnerable.”

“Human, yes,” the scientist confirmed. “Vulnerable, definitely not. Remember that her genetic code is translated from your very human genes. We made changes, yes, but more than ninety-nine percent of it remains the original, albeit now in biotic code. When we designed her, it was imperative that we modify no more than absolutely necessary, not only because every alteration carried a risk, but more importantly because we wanted her to be as close to a biological human as possible without actually being one. These responses, she can learn to overcome. We didn’t need to edit them out.

“We only changed what was essential for her to function according to specification, things like her enhancements, her genetic loyalty, and her metabolic system. The rest, she can learn to live with, just as humans have throughout the ages. The difference is that she’s experiencing it all at once, as an adult, instead of gradually learning to cope with it as a child. It’s overwhelming her.

“That, and we also have to remember that she’s the prototype, the first of what will hopefully become a long line of biotic Special Agents. Later iterations will improve upon her design. They won’t have nearly as difficult a time coming online as she has.”

“She looks like she’s going to vomit.”

“She might. It’s an instinctive physical response to feeling sick. It doesn’t matter that she can’t be poisoned or that there’s no biological reason for her to empty her stomach. Her brain still reacts that way because removing that response wasn’t necessary. Right now she may pant, vomit, and suffer from a racing heart, but she’ll soon learn to control her body. Trust me.”

The two of them, the scientist and the Special Agent, were talking about her as though she weren’t in the room. Avor didn’t really mind. At the moment, she didn’t feel like talking anyway. It was better to listen and learn, at least until she could calm down enough to participate in the discussion.

She closed her eyes and focused on her heart. She heard its steady pounding in her ears. Calming herself, she tried to shut out the rest of the world around her.

Slowly, the frequency of the beats decreased.

One hundred sixty-two.

One hundred forty-seven.

One hundred thirty-six.

“Good,” Dr. tot mascham said. “You’re doing it, Avor. You’re going to be all right.”

For a moment, she thought she had regained control of her body.

Then her pulse spiked once more, and she began to hyperventilate.

“She’s losing it!” Mbenge exclaimed, her words tinged with fear.

Dr. tot mascham shook her head, though when she spoke, her voice betrayed that she, too, was concerned.

“No. Her body can take it. So can her mind. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t suffering. She’s having a panic attack, and it’s taking a physical toll. Imagined or not, she’s in real pain. Blood vessel spasms, headache, burning lungs. She may even be going into shock. None of it is dangerous to her, but that doesn’t matter. She can still feel it, and she’s responding the way a biological Terran, for whom those conditions truly are life-threatening, would.”

The Etarian scientist turned to Avor, placed the long fingers of her hand against the biot’s cheek, and gently raised her head until their eyes met.

“Focus on my voice, Avor. Try to activate pain mode three.”

She didn’t know what that was.

No, that wasn’t true.

She knew that she knew. She just couldn’t concentrate well enough to remember.

“Are you sure this is how all intelligent computers react when activated?” Special Agent Mbenge asked.

Dr. tot mascham glanced quickly at a monitor before answering.

“Intellectually, yes. Despite what you see, her brain is still operating within expected parameters. But it’s also connected to a body unlike any an intelligent computer has ever had. That comes with an entirely new set of interactions we’ve never observed before, and in that context, I can’t say for certain whether they’re normal.”

Turning back to Avor, she continued, and this time her voice was more forceful.

“Pain mode three, Avor. Now, please.”

Suddenly, she remembered.

The knowledge infused into her broke through the chaos of her hypersensitized mind, and she finally understood what the scientist wanted her to do.

Like any human, she could feel pain. It was an evolutionary response to injury, intended to instinctively prevent further tissue damage. Now fully informed of the technical details of Project 18, Avor knew her design had deliberately retained that response. Even if physical injury would never kill her, her designers still hadn’t wanted her system to endure more trauma than necessary. Pain was the tool that ensured it wouldn’t.

The keyword was “necessary.”

Given her job description, pain was inevitable. Even for a biological Special Agent, agony was almost part of the daily routine. For Avor, designed to walk into burning buildings or through the subzero vacuum of frozen moons, the level of pain she would endure throughout the life ahead of her would be orders of magnitude greater than anything a biological Special Agent had ever been forced to suffer.

With her nervous system modeled on Mbenge’s, she would feel every bit of it exactly as Mbenge would.

And on that level, it would paralyze her. The fact that she was physically unkillable wouldn’t help her mind one bit.

For that reason, she knew, Dr. tot mascham had designed her with three distinct pain modes.

The first, in which she operated by default, was exactly what biological beings called normal life. When she was hurt, she felt pain, and because of that sensation, her body responded with the same symptoms Mbenge’s would have under the same circumstances. The pain would contort her face. She would pant, her muscles would spasm, and she would scream. The agony would be real.

Then there was pain mode two. In that mode, her body would still do all those things, except she would no longer experience the sensation of pain itself. Her body would continue to behave exactly as it had in mode one, but her mind would be freed from the overwhelming, paralyzing agony she would otherwise have had to endure. The damage she sustained would instead be registered only as data points. She would know she was hurt without having to suffer the torment of pain.

And then there was the third mode, combat mode, which Dr. tot mascham was now imploring her to activate. In mode three, even the simulated pain response of mode two would cease. Completely free, in both body and mind, from the prison of pain, she would now only record the damage without being affected by it in any way beyond the physical injury itself.

All she had to do was think about it, and mode three granted her immediate, sweet release.

The panting stopped.

Her heart slowed.

The cramping ceased.

And with the pain and her body’s physical response to her mental crisis gone, her panic and fear subsided as well. Mode three didn’t actually do anything about the terror and anguish she had felt, not directly. But with the cessation of pain came a calm that allowed her to mentally overcome her distress and finally rise above her confused state. Combat mode didn’t make her unfeeling, not in the slightest. It just protected her from that specific feeling of physical suffering. But for now, that shield was enough for her to break free and assert herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said to her concerned colleague and the Etarian scientist standing beside her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s all right, Avor,” Special Agent Mbenge assured her. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

“I’m fine. I just… it was all too much for a while.”

It wasn’t that her memories were artificial. Stored in her brain exactly as they would have been had she experienced them herself, they were no less real, even if they weren’t truly her own. Their fidelity was no different from that of the memories a biological human accumulated over a lifetime of learning.

No, the problem was that there were simply too many of them, and she hadn’t yet learned how to sort through them. Coupled with the virtual flash flood of sensory data rushing over her at the same time, it had all become too much. But eventually, she would learn to cope.

Turning to Dr. tot mascham, she continued, “Thank you for helping me. For a moment, I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do.”

“That’s understandable,” the scientist replied. “You’ll learn. Now you know. The next time, it’ll be easier.”

Then a cunning look settled across the Etarian’s face.

“Remember that you can activate mode three whenever you want, Avor. You never have to feel pain if you don’t want to.”

The thought was both soothing and frightening at the same time. She lingered on it for a brief moment before shaking her head.

“No, I don’t think I want that. It’s not that I enjoy feeling pain, but most of the time, it won’t be debilitating. If biological humans can endure it, then I certainly can, too. There will be situations when I can’t, of course, and then I’ll use the other pain modes if they help me save lives. But if you don’t mind, I’d like mode one to remain my default setting.”

Dr. tot mascham smiled knowingly. “I’m glad to hear it. That’s exactly the response we were hoping for when we designed you—a willingness to experience the human condition while also accepting that, at times, transcending it will help you save lives.”

“I think my job is mostly done here,” she continued, now turning to Special Agent Mbenge. “I’ll continue monitoring Special Agent Ameir, of course, but for now, I leave her in your capable hands. Guide her. Be her mentor until you clear her to operate on her own.”

Author's Note

The story you're reading is one of many set in the Lords of the Stars universe I've been creating over the past 30 years, where familiar characters and places reappear, and new favorites await discovery. Check out my profile to explore more stories from this universe.

While The Wolf Reforged is entirely standalone and can be read without any prior knowledge, I think you'll also enjoy Scorched Earth, Wonders From Beyond the Sky, and A Game of Wolf and Mouse which are prequels to this story, and Twilight Duty, Guardian of the Wolf, and Conscience of Steel, which are sequels.

Visit the official Lords of the Stars blog for more information about this hard sci-fi universe: https://lordsofthestars.wordpress.com

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