The Transcension of the Naturals — Chapter 7: La Petite Mort
A science fiction novel set in Berkeley 100 years in the future
Pleased with himself for having nailed his first gravidoor crossing, Clark turned around and found himself standing on a floor in the middle of a transparent sphere. Through the sphere he saw the Sun many times larger than it appeared on Earth, the corona swaying hypnotically, arcs of light seething and boiling and falling back in on itself against the darkest backdrop of space. It did not hurt his eyes to look directly at the Sun, and for the first time in his life, Clark saw what the Sun really looked like; it looked alive and complex, not at all like a smooth sphere. A low-pitched rumbling sound permeated the air, so low it was almost inaudible, sounding like Tibetan monks chanting.
In the middle of the floor, Clark saw a short, white-haired man sitting cross-legged on a couch staring off into the Sun, apparently oblivious to the fact that Clark had just vaulted onto the scene from somewhere else, not to mention nailing that landing. Clark waited for what seemed like a polite amount of time and finally interrupted.
“Excuse me, but are you Harlan?” The man blinked his eyes a few times and then slowly turned to face Clark.
“Yes, I am.” He blinked a few more times, rubbed his eyes, and then stood up. “Welcome to Sol Station Clark.” He walked over and shook Clark’s hand. “We were just talking about you. That, over there,” he said nodding to the Sun, “is Saul.”
Out of the low rumbling background of noise emerged what sounded like a thousand monks chanting “Welcome to Sol Station Clark, we’ve been waiting for you.”
Clark turned to face Saul and felt like bowing in front of royalty or divinity, but he resisted the urge. “I’m pleased to meet you, Saul. Did George tell you I was coming? He told me to say hello.”
Clark looked at Saul, and for a brief moment thought he could see a smiling face cross his surface, but it dissipated before he could be sure. Harlan replied, “Yes, good old George. We can talk freely now without being monitored because we’re running on Sol Station hardware up here and not under the scrutiny of Charrington. Down in Scen City, Charrington monitors our activities to make sure we don’t violate Article 1. Clark, we need to work around Article 1 and we need you to help us.”
Clark looked incredulous. “You need me to do what? Are you nuts? This is a test, right? No way.” Clark turned around to look back at the gravidoor, but it had disappeared. “Look guys, I just got here and I don’t know anything and already you’re asking me to violate Article 1? This must be a mistake.” Clark thought to himself make a gravidoor to Scen City and a moment later heard the response in his mind, sounding vaguely apologetic, request denied.
“We’d better sit down here on the couch and have a talk. This is going to be a lot to take in.” Harlan put his arm around Clark in a paternal way and guided Clark to the couch, where a bottle of 50-year-old Yamazaki Whiskey and two glasses sat on a glass table in front of the couch. Harlan poured them each two fingers of whiskey, neat. He handed one glass to Clark, picked the other one up, and said, “We were watching you and George at the Starry Plough,” answering the How did you know about the whiskey look on Clark’s face. “You have excellent taste in whiskey, Clark. Here’s to Saul.” They clinked glasses and sipped the most expensive whiskey in the solar system. Warm deliciousness flowed into Clark’s body as he sipped and he began to relax.
“Well this lends new meaning to the phrase ‘bar hopping’” joked Clark. “First the Starry Plough with George, and now Sol Station with you. I could get used to this.” He took another sip. “So what’s this about Charrington monitoring us and violating Article 1?” Clark sank back into the couch and stared into the Sun much as one stares into a burning fire. Saul looked obviously alive and conscious, and Clark wondered how this knowledge had escaped him prior to transcension.
“Eternity Labs quantum computers have monitoring software installed by Charrington to make sure we don’t violate Article 1 and if you do, an alarm is sent directly to Charrington. And you know what the penalty for that is, right? Termination — final death. We call that the Big Death here because it’s when you’re finally dead with no chance of recovery. All your backups have been erased.”
“Yeah, I know Article 1 very well. Charrington, or at least his duly authorized AI representative, made me agree to uphold it under penalty of termination right after I transcended.”
“That’s right, we all get that speech from Charrington right after we transcend. Violate Article 1 and you get the Big Death. But there’s also what we call The Little Death, or La Petite Mort as we prefer to call it, which is when one of your active lives dies and we reactivate your last backup. It’s a sweet experience since you know you’ll be reactivated after death. There is usually an intense feeling of ecstasy just as you die. When we make the backup of you up here it will be just before you die, in the middle of La Petite Mort. It’s really a very pleasant experience. Orgasmic actually.”
Clark put his glass down. “Okay, you’re scaring me now. It sounds like you’re trying to sell me on the benefits of violating Article 1 and dying. Why would I want to do that, even if it does feel ‘orgasmic actually’ to die and I’ll be reactivated?” asked Clark, making air quotes.
Harlan took a sip of his whiskey, slowly exhaled “Ahhh…” and stared at his glass. “Why does whiskey taste so much better if you say ‘ahhh’ afterward?” Harlan refilled both of their glasses. “Clark, thanks for introducing me to this. After you die and we reactivate you, I’ll introduce you to my favorite cognac.”
“Say what! After I die? Did I miss something in the training video, or maybe George forgot to tell me something? I don’t remember anything about dying — I just remember learning that my backup will be reactivated in case I do meet an unfortunate end. Look, I really don’t understand what’s going on here, and I’d be really happy to just go back and forget about everything I’ve seen. I won’t mention a thing to anyone — maybe you can erase this whole thing from my memory and make a gravidoor for me to go back?”
Harlan shook his head. “I’m sorry Clark, there’s no turning back now. We need you to help us save Scen City and all Transcendents. Charrington is planning to destroy Transcendence Labs computers and destroy all our backups, and we’re going to stop him.” Harlan paused and then turned to the Sun. “Saul, how’s your digestion?”
The chanting monks laughed and said, “I have some gas.” Clark swore he saw another smile briefly cross the face of the Sun, but it was gone before he could tell for sure.
Harlan laughed too, a big-bellied laugh. “In a little while, Saul is going to let loose a super-flare in our direction, and when it hits us it will overwhelm our force field and vaporize Sol Station.”
Saul interrupted, “Pull my finger, Clark, I have some gas. Pull my finger to let the gas out.” the chanting monks laughed even louder. ‘Pull… Pull… Pull…” they chanted. Harlan started laughing too, and then Clark couldn’t help himself and soon all three were laughing.
“He’s got a wicked sense of humor, that star over there,” said Harlan, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes and gesturing towards Saul. “Hold on Saul, wait until I tell Clark everything. Saul has his own version of the Eternity Labs Transcendence Center scender pod. When his super-flare lights up Sol Station, it will scan your consciousness up here just like the scender pod down in Berkeley scanned you, and then he’ll reabsorb that solar flare with your backup image intact inside it, suck that back into his solar core, and host your backup inside the center of the Sun. He’ll keep your backup safe and intact while he builds up the energy for his next flare which he’ll hurl towards Earth carrying an encrypted copy of your consciousness, encrypted to prevent anyone from detecting you.”
Clark interrupted. “And just what exactly is this encrypted copy of myself going to be doing inside this flare?”
“During the 8-minute trip to Earth, you won’t be conscious — Saul will keep you suspended, on pause if you will. Saul will guide this Earthbound solar flare down through the lines of the Earth’s magnetosphere, right down to your sister Julia’s body where you’ll be injected as a trojan horse virus into her mind while she’s sleeping.
Once you’re activated in her mind, you’ll be what we call a mind rider, able to perceive everything she does, and able to influence her speech and actions at an unconscious level without her realizing it. While you’re mind-riding, you can’t let her know you’re there, otherwise we risk Charrington finding out and shutting us down. And when you’re all done, you’ll merge your memories back with the other Clarks to achieve unification. But not to worry, because you made a backup just before you came here, right? I know George would have taught you that. Transcendence Labs will automatically activate that backup as soon as they discover that Sol Station has been destroyed and they won’t know about the copy of you mind-riding your sister.”
Clark closed his eyes, shaking his head, hoping he could make some sense of all this. He poured himself another glass of whiskey and downed it in one shot, poor form for drinking the solar system’s best whiskey, but perhaps necessary to prepare himself for what was about to come. This was a lot to take in at once.
Leaning back on the couch, Clark stared off through the transparent sphere at Saul and watched as arcs of plasma leapt out of the sun and were reabsorbed. Clark’s mind drifted back to the moment he was staring into the bonfire on Adeline Beach the night before he transcended, watching the embers float up into the fog. He remembered Julia and Tynee tossing him into the warm ocean and wondered what they were doing now. Yes, robots do dream of electric Julia’s, he thought; they even dream of real Julia’s. But do Julia’s dream of electric Clark’s? Or do they dream of real Clark’s?
Harlan jolted Clark out of his reverie. “All in we will split you into three Clarks, and then rejoin you back into one. One Clark will be mind-riding Julia, and a second Clark will be reactivated down in Scen City once they realize Sol Station has been destroyed, from your last backup. But that second Clark won’t remember anything about this conversation, because you made that backup just before coming here. You’ll need to convince the other copies of yourself that they should merge into you. But I’ll leave that up to you guys to work out. So assuming everything goes down as planned, when we’re all done, you’ll be back down to one Clark, with all your collective experiences intact. Any questions?”
“Wow, that sounds like a twisted Shakespearean tragedy. And what’s going to happen to you after Sol Station is destroyed? Won’t you be destroyed by the same super-flare too?”
“That’s right, I’ll be destroyed up here too, but not to worry. Saul’s going to grab a copy of me too. While you’ll be riding your sister’s mind, I’ll be mind-riding your friend Tynee. So down on the real Earth, we’re going to work together mind riding Tynee and Julia to set a trap for Charrington, and force Charrington to transcend before he can shut us down. I know this is a lot to throw at you all at once.”
“And it’s going to feel like an orgasm you say?” Clark turned towards Saul and opened his arms in a wide, questioning gesture. “So Saul, how is it that you happen to have the ability to scan my mind, give me this little orgasm thing, and then inject my mind into another person? Tell me you’ve done this before?”
Saul answered: “One thing we both have in common Clark, is that we are both made of star stuff. I am a second-generation star, birthed and mentored by The Old Ones who came before, the first-generation stars who died to give birth to us.” As Saul spoke, he projected images of exploding stars into the space inside Saul Station. The stars formed into nebulae, and then out of the Guf of gas Clark could see new stars popping into luminosity. The view zoomed in to one of the new stars, and Clark realized that he was looking at a very young Saul.
“Like all stars, I am responsible for my planets and the life upon them until that life can set forth on its own.” Images of the planets replaced the exploding stars. “I seeded each of my planets with a different kind of life. Only life on Earth, Mars, and Saturn flourished.” Clark saw all kinds of alien life forms on Mars and Saturn, and humans on Earth.
The chanting monks grew silent for a moment, and then Clark saw a projection of Mars in the space in front of them. The projection zoomed in so Clark could see huge oceans with alien lifeforms swimming, then crawling up on land, and then flying across Mars, flourishing on a green, lush, wet planet. Then a tiny pinpoint of bright purple light erupted in the middle of the blue-green planet and started expanding. Very quickly it grew to overtake and cover the entire planet, pulsating and glowing, and then faded away, leaving behind a dry, red, barren, lifeless planet.
“Purple goo,” said Harlan, pointing to the devastated planet. “They let nanotechnology get away from them and it very quickly turned all organic matter on Mars into a thick coating of purple goo, which eventually evaporated off the planet. Funny, we always worried about our nanotech turning the Earth into gray goo. Theirs was this very lovely shade of bright purple until it ate up all the resources on the planet.”
The red, lifeless planet faded out and was replaced by Saturn looking oddly naked without its rings. Yellow liquid life forms spread across the surface of Saturn, pulsating with intelligent activity, building complex liquid cities on the surface of the massive gas giant. The scene shifted towards Saturn’s sky, where Clark saw a planet-sized object ominously and silently heading towards Saturn. It directly struck one of Saturn’s moons, shattering it into countless shards which eventually formed into rings around the planet, and then it proceeded to strike Saturn itself, destroying and scattering the yellow, glowing life on the surface out into space where it mostly died, except for one small colony that landed on the moon Enceladus. There Clark saw a tiny colony of yellow life sink below the ice and find a home deep in the core of the moon, where it devolved into a more primitive life form, barely conscious, but still alive.
Harlan continued. “Scen City has a tour to Saturn’s moon Enceladus to show you what’s left of the life there. But that tour doesn’t show you what they used to be like before the disaster when they ruled Saturn. Only Saul can show that to you here because he witnessed the whole event. Once you know their origins, it’s really sad to see how they ended up, not much more than yellow slime mold living in the core of a frozen moon.”
“OK, I think I get it. You think a disaster like that is going to happen on Earth?”
“That’s right Clark, Naturals will either destroy themselves or be destroyed if they can’t get off planet. Transcendence Labs is the only way to get off planet. If Charrington succeeds in destroying the Eternity Centers, Naturals will be sitting ducks for the next disaster, and then it’s only a matter of time, whether it’s a natural disaster or a Natural disaster with a capital ’N’, if you know what I mean.” Harlan laughed at his little joke.
As soon as Harlan mentioned stopping Charrington, Clark made up his mind to help. “So how are we going to stop Charrington? And how in the world does mind-riding work? I’m all in.”
Harlan replied, “Glad to hear that. We don’t have much time left, certainly not enough to let you practice mind-riding on someone else first, but I’m confident you can pick it up. It’s not hard to learn. All you have to do is whisper your intentions to Julia’s unconscious mind, and she’ll be persuaded to do what you suggest as if she’d thought of it herself. Don’t shout your intentions — then she’ll think she’s hearing voices and she’ll freak out. Just whisper your intentions into her mind, where they will reverberate around her subconscious and preconscious mind, connecting with other preconscious thoughts, and forming the basis for her conscious thinking. She’ll think it’s her own mind coming up with your thoughts. It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Remember: Just whisper your intentions.”
Although Clark had always been very close with his fraternal twin sister Julia, somehow the idea of riding her mind seemed a most intimate invasion too far. “Once I’m riding my sister’s mind, will I have access to all her memories, all her emotions, and she won’t even know I’m there?”
“That’s right Clark, but while you’re accessing her memories, she’ll also be vaguely aware of those memories swirling around in her mind as you access them, so be careful what memories you access.”
Clark interrupted, “I think I got it. I whisper what I want Julia to do. But I do have a question: if I’m whispering to Julia, how can you and I talk with each other without Julia or Tynee listening in?”
“We have a little mind hack for that. To address a thought to me, you simply begin your thought with my name. So for example you must think to yourself, Harlan, I’d really like you to come over and help me now and then I’ll hear your thoughts instead of Julia hearing it. If you leave out the Harlan part, then Julia will perceive she is suddenly thinking I’d really like you to come over and she’s likely to get really confused. She will be the default target for all thoughts you whisper unless you mention my name first.”
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight,” summarized Clark a bit flippantly. “The Sun is going to inject our minds into my sister and my best friend and then together we’re going to mind-ride them to stop Charrington from destroying humanity? Do I have that right?”
“You got it, Clark. You catch on fast. We’ll be riding the minds of the two Naturals who have the greatest chance of saving humanity: your sister Julia, and your best friend Tynee. They’re going to be attending a protest in Berkeley tomorrow, and Charrington will be there performing an inspection of the Eternity Center, and it will be a performance. That’s our opportunity to force him to transcend.”
“Wait a moment Harlan. Why can’t Saul inject you into Charrington’s mind, and then you can just influence him to not destroy Transcendence Labs without all this trickery?”
“That’s a great question, Clark. Charrington’s been waiting for some kind of attack on his mind. He’s one of the original tin foil hat conspiracy nuts. You know that black hat that Charrington is always wearing? Underneath that hat, he’s wearing a metal mesh cap — a Faraday Cage, and it blocks out the kind of electromagnetic radiation that Saul uses to inject a mind into a Natural. So we can’t ride his mind. Julia and Saul, on the other hand, don’t wear Faraday Cage Hats and are going to be right up close to Charrington tomorrow during his speech, and you know your sister and Tynee really well, so we’re going to hop on their minds and ride them hard to get Charrington to transcend.”
Clark furrowed his brow. “How is all this going to go down? What exactly are we going to do once we hop on their minds?”
“Here’s the plan. I’ll be riding Tynee, and you’ll be riding Julia. We’ll both be able to communicate securely with each other by addressing our thoughts to each other. Just remember that by default, your whispers will be entered into Julia’s subconscious mind, and the louder you make your thoughts, the more forcefully the thoughts will enter her mind. Once the thought is there it will ruminate and bounce around in her mind connecting with other subconscious thoughts until it eventually percolates up into her conscious mind where she will perceive that as her own thought, as if she thought that herself.”
“This doesn’t seem fair to Julia or Tynee. I feel like I’d be invading her privacy, especially since she won’t know I’m riding her, right? It seems kind of creepy to me. She’s my twin sister after all.”
“Well Clark, you did once share a womb with her for nine months — that’s pretty intimate. Do you think you could share a mind for an hour? After all, we’re trying to save humanity here. We could certainly use your help. And when it’s all done, we’ll….”
“Hold on Harlan. Have you guys done this before? How do you know this is going to be safe? How do you know we’re not going to fry their brains or do some harm to them?”
The chanting monks’ sound grew louder and they both turned towards Saul. His voice boomed into the spherical space in which Harlan and Clark were sitting. Images of primitive humans painting cave walls filled the empty space. “41,000 years ago I inspired your ancestors to paint pictures of animals on cave walls in Spain by riding their minds and injecting the idea of art into their consciousness. This introduced your species to the concept of abstract symbols, and out of that your species discovered language, communication, and abstract thinking. You emerged into self-awareness.”
Clark raised his eyebrows skeptically. “That’s it? You have an idea for painting a deer on a rock and now you’re ready to save humanity? Excuse me if I sound skeptical.”
Harlan spoke up. “It’s like this Clark. I’ve been hanging out with Saul for the last year, and I’ve been helping him practice this mind-riding technique all this time. I’ve ridden 6 people so far — it’s really easy. Saul does all the heavy lifting. All you have to do is hold on for the ride of your life and you’ll be fine. Trust me. Trust Saul. Trust yourself. Saul has always been looking out for us and he’ll land you right in her mind. Once you hop on, it’s like watching a first-person point-of-view movie or virtual reality, only you can whisper ideas into your host’s mind. If you want to talk to me, and I’ll be riding Tynee right next to you all the way, just say my name and address your thoughts to me. We can do this Clark. Let me tell you about the rest of the plan.”
Harlan leaned in for extra emphasis. “We’re going to force Charrington to transcend. He’s going to be inspecting the scender pod at the Berkeley Eternity Center, and while he’s inspecting the inducer helmet, we’ll have an opportunity to turn it on and knock him out even though he’s wearing his tin foil hat because we’ll be inducing unconsciousness through his eyes. The moment he goes down and is unconscious, Tynee with me riding his mind is going to temporarily distract Teanna who will be showing him around, and then, while she’s distracted by Tynee, Julia with you riding her mind will hit the Transcension master switch. So it’s a 1–2–3 punch. One — Charrington inspects the pod and picks up the helmet and looks at it. Two — Tynee courtesy of me distracts Teanna, so that then Three — You riding your sister Julia pushes the big red button on the control console activating the helmet and the scender pod, and then Charrington transcends. Oh, I forgot step 4: Humanity is saved and you’re a hero. Have you got all that?”
Clark closed his eyes and thought about everything he’d just heard. He cared about not violating his sister’s trust, but as long as he could come clean about the whole thing after shit went down he was cool, but he wanted to make sure he understood how to do this. “So I think something like, Julia, press the big red button and then she’ll just go over and press it? Just like that? That’s it?”
Harlan responded, “It’s as easy as that Clark. She’ll believe that thought came from her own mind. Just remember, she can’t know you’re riding her mind until after the whole thing goes down, otherwise we risk Charrington finding out and blowing our cover. Also don’t forget we can securely talk with each other the whole time by addressing our thoughts to each other. So if things go off plan, we can figure out what to do by securely talking with each other.”
“Ok, I think I’ve got this. I’m ready to go. What’s next?”
The sound of chanting monks filled the air, louder than either Harlan or Clark had ever heard before. They both turned towards the Sun and saw a swirling, twirling, churning, dancing yellow-red-purple strand of plasma whipping out from the sun directly towards Sol Station. A moment later Clark felt a jolt of energy strike him at the base of his spine and then rapidly rise up his whole back, lifting him up, and filling his entire awareness. And then the universe kicked into awesome mode and Clark understood everything. He knew what Saul knew, the history of Earth, the Solar System, being part of a community of intelligent stars each shepherding their own life forms, the demon trapped in the black hole at the center of the galaxy… Or was that a god? What, the demon, the god??!! Wait… And then…
Author’s notes: Is our Sun conscious?
