Tales of the First War: Poddies
by Steven Vincent
Another sunny day in Phoenix AZ. Not too hot. Well, it’s only April.
Germaine Howard feels pretty awesome, energized by the two mile run from the Conscious Evolution Foundation campus. He throttles down to a jog for a block, and then a slow stroll. His sweat-soaked blue t-shirt sports the Foundation’s emblem: an “Infinite Sphere” with a radiant Sun at its center. For Germaine, it’s much more than a logo. Right after a strong run he experiences the energy of the Central Sun as it lights up his skin, warm and electric, like how you feel after a deep tissue massage.
He finds himself standing in front of a sporting goods store. Looks down at his old running shoes. Damn, these are pretty beat! Soles worn out. Looking in the display window of the store, he breaks out in a big smile and laughs out loud.
Oh yeah! The latest Nikes are out! It’s the new Air Jordan Retro 15ME. The “Mary Edition”. Gotta get those shoes!
As a UCLA undergrad two years before, he was part of the “Free Mary Now” movement. Camped outside of the Promethean Technologies building in L.A. with thousands of others where Robot Mary was being held captive. What a thrill to be there as Mary emerged from that building! All those voices cheering for the brave little bot that exposed the corruption of The SAMSON Initiative to the world. Wow. You just knew you were part of history as it happened!
Then he sees the price tag. Ouch. Well, 50% of each sale goes to Mary’s foundation and besides, staying on scholarship at the Foundation campus means his living expenses are minimal. Let’s just do it!
Germaine reaches to open the store’s door. Just then a customer exits, a tall man, lightly brushing him as he passes by.
Germaine’s head hits the sidewalk concrete with a crack.
Spinning, darkness. What?
The man’s voice: “Hey bro! I’m sorry. I barely grazed ya!”
Germaine blinks, tries to open his eyes. Can’t focus. But he can make out a new pair of Nike Air Jordan Retro 15ME’s a few inches away on the sidewalk in front of his face. Red with white trim.
The stranger is crouched over him. Grabbing his hand, tries to pull him up to his feet.
Germaine wretches, doubles over, convulsing in a violent, incapacitating dry heave.
The man releases his grip on Germaine’s hand. His new shoes scrape and shuffle on the sidewalk as he backs away. “Bro, I’m calling for help.”
With each step the stranger takes away from him Germaine feels the overwhelming sickness pervading his body and mind gradually ease. He can breathe again. Sits up straight. Rubbing his temples, draws a deep breath. Tries to shakes the fogginess out of his head.
Whoa! How do you go from feeling like pure living radiance itself to the victim of a chemical warfare attack in under a second?
The tall man finishes up with 911 and moves back towards Germaine. Smiling, affable, helpful. “Hey, paramedics are on the way. Just chill, bro.”
But the closer he gets, the more Germaine feels like…death. He scoots away in a panic, extends his palm, warding off the stranger’s approach. “Stop! Stop…don’t…just…”.
The man halts his approach, respecting the boundary that Germaine apparently needs. “It’s OK bro! I’m just trying to help.”
A small crowd gathers. A woman offers a bottle of water. He accepts it gratefully and chugs. Hits the spot!
Germaine sits propped up against the building. In his fuzzy peripheral vision he sees the flashing of emergency lights. Then he hears the thud of vehicle doors, the shuffle of feet.
Paramedics are by his side now. A female medic scans his pupils. “What happened?”
Germaine shakes his head. “No idea. Dude comes out of the store, bumps me and boom! I’m down and out.”
Germaine looks up at the man and…he’s not sure what he’s seeing. Dude doesn’t look like other people. It’s like…he’s not really there. Ghostly. But water bottle lady standing right next to him is clear and in focus. Weird.
The male medic takes a skin sample from Germaine’s arm. “Do you want to file charges?”
“What? No. It’s not like that…like…I dunno, an allergic reaction or something.” Germaine looks over at tall dude again and can now see him clearly. He’s just a guy. Normal.
Male medic stands and moves the crowd back. “Give him some air to breathe, please.”
Female medic tilts Germaine’s head back. “Sir, I’m taking a nasal sample.”
She sticks a swab up his nose and then puts it in a portable analyzer. “We should get the results in a minute or so.”
Germaine’s had enough of this lame-ass sitting on the ground. Tries to stand up. Uh-oh. He goes all wobbly. Male medic guides him back down to the ground. “Easy now. Let us do our thing. Just chill.”
Female medic is on comms now. “Yeah, expedite that one. Possible fast-acting pathogenic exposure. Maybe chemical or radiological. Check all vectors.”
This startles Germaine. “Oh, shit. What, like a lab leak?”
He looks at Tall Dude, and once again, has a difficult time actually seeing him. Just a cloudy patch of smokiness.
Tall Dude starts to back away. “OK, you guys got this, so I’m gonna head…” Doesn’t want to get wrapped up in some kind of hassle. Turns and takes a few steps.
Female medic moves to corral him. “Sir! Please wait.” She doesn’t want Typhoid Mary wandering the streets on her watch. “Let’s clear this now, just to be safe. We don’t want Phoenix to be the new Tampa.”
Tall Dude turns around to face them and, though his back appears normal to Germaine’s eyes, his front side looks like a dark blob in the rough outline of a human being.
Germaine recalls something that Ursula Banks-Howe said in a recent HoloPresence talk for Conscious Evolutionist “Sensitives” like him. “As the evolutionary force asserts its influence, Sensitives will experience a wide variety of energetic phenomena. Some may be pleasant and some may be quite unpleasant. If that happens, just return to the Infinite Sphere, to the innate harmony and power of the Central Sun that lives there.”
Sitting up straight, Germaine inhales, concentrates on the midpoint between his eyebrows. The glow of the Central Sun becomes visible in his mind’s eye. The queasiness passes and a balanced peacefulness takes over.
He opens his eyes. Now he can see it!
A spiral of obscure, inky energy streams downward from the man’s head through his body and passing through the feet into the earth dissipates outwardly in dark concentric waves.
Tall Dude speaks, disrupting the vision.
“Hey man. Don’t look at me like that! I didn’t do anything to you.”
Now he appears normal to Germaine’s eyes again.
Germaine feels the male medic’s hand on his elbow. “You want to try to get up?”
Germaine nods, and the medics help him stand. He’s good now.
Female medic finishes reviewing the lab results on her tablet. “Well, you’re clear. Nada. Can’t find a damn thing wrong with you.”
She shows male medic the results. His eyebrows arch. “Yeah, we don’t see numbers like that. You could be the healthiest human being alive!”
Germaine smiles. He knew that.
He can see now that the man is in his 40’s. Pasty. Like he needs to get outside a lot more often. Could lose 20 or 30 pounds. An average 40ish, though. Normal, for America in 2032. But Germaine knows, literally in his gut, that the man is sick. Or rather, that he is sickness. He emanates decay. Disease. Death.
“But him”, Germaine points at Tall Dude, “you should check him out.”
The man gives a disgusted, dismissive wave, turns his back and stomps away.
Germaine shouts after him. “Hey, get yourself checked out. You got something. Something’s wrong with you, man!”
Tall, average 40’s chucks a finger over his shoulder and continues on his way. As he passes a family pushing a baby stroller, the infant instantly wails like an alarm siren.
Arriving back at his suburban Scottsdale home, fuming inwardly over his encounter with Germaine, Jeff Breyer slams the front door, tosses his keys onto the living room table. Heads straight to the refrigerator.
Fuck that guy. Last time I try to help another human being. I got something wrong? Me? You’re the one who passed out on the sidewalk. Asshole!
He yanks open the fridge and pops a beer. Chugs as he walks to the far end of the house into a large room. A nine foot long tubular module that looks something like a high tech tanning bed dominates the space.
Jeff gazes at the Similtude Systems Virtual Reality Immersion Pod as he takes another pull on his beer, hankering to climb inside and lose himself in it.
In the far corner of the room his final attempt at a great tech invention sits on a work bench, half-completed and abandoned. A prototype room temperature superconducting motor that could have enabled a thousand world-changing innovations. Artificial Intelligence designed a much better technology before he got his patented. Could have made billions.
Once a highly paid top roboticist at Promethean Technologies, he was replaced by AI in 2028. Now, mostly, he Pods.
Jeff finishes off his beer and tosses the bottle across the room into the trash. It clinks glassily against its many predecessors as it hits the nearly full barrel.
As part of his severance package Jeff was automatically qualified for government subsidized beta access to the Similtude Systems VR11. Two weeks later, he received a notification that he had been accepted into the program.
He earns “points” by allowing the data generated during his pod usage to be collected for study. They say it’s going to help find a cure for Alzheimer’s. His ongoing participation “adds value” to the project. So much so that they recently awarded him a free upgrade to the new VR14 with the full haptic skinsuit.
As he pulls on the rubbery, electronic contact-lined suit, it snaps back against his bulging belly. Ugh! Getting into this damn thing is becoming a chore. They need to make the fabric more stretchy. Yeah, OK. Getting fat. Should start running again. He glances down at his new Nike’s. Tomorrow. For sure.
The metallic contacts are annoying though. Especially the ones that rub against your temples. It’s like they’re still pulsing into your brain even when you’re not in the Pod.
By law Virtual Reality Immersion Pods (VRIP) are designed to automatically power off for 12 hours out of every 24 in order to prevent “Pod Death”. Many users would simply never leave their Pod and would die inside them if the machines were not forced to shut down. Just gone to heaven (or hell) and died. V-RIP. Virtual Rest In Peace.
Users actually protested against the law. Demanded the right to stay immersed as long as they wanted. “My Body, My Mind, My Life, My Right!”
Similtude Systems, the device manufacturer, lobbied heavily in favor of the auto shutdown feature. It was good PR. Support a bill that limits your user base and your profits. Creates the image of a conscientious corporation.
But in real reality, the company needs its users to disconnect and interact with the physical world in order to “harmonize” the data generated by the program. Progressive “retuning” creates an ever more immersive experience for the subject.
Jeff worked long enough in the tech biz to know that the service itself is always a means to some larger ends. He pretends that he’s not a guinea pig in some kind of experiment. He knows he’s lying to himself. And he doesn’t give a damn.
Jeff climbs inside, cozies into it, gets comfortable. Ready to ride. He hits the big red button and the pod door seals with a whoosh.
Would he just stay immersed 24/7 if he could? Who knows. Maybe. But right now his only concern is which program to run.
The Pod suggests “Attack of the Gorgons”. Oh yeah.
Debauched pleasures. Horrific slaughter. Fantastic voyages. Brave new worlds. There’s no way to describe the direct experience with mere words. Those who know, know. Those who don’t disdainfully refer to the users as “Poddies”.
Ursula Banks-Howe empties the shavings from her desktop pencil sharpener into the waste bin. She enjoys the scratch of graphite on paper. The artisanal flow of cursive hand writing from mind to hand to pencil to paper.
In a world ever more abstracted from itself, Ursula practices and teaches the art and science of conscious self-creation. She calls it “Conscious Evolution”.
The sentence she’s just written begins a new chapter in her book, “Conscious Evolution: A Choice for Humanity”.
“Every form is the expression of a truth.”
The cursive letters are well-formed. Almost calligraphic. They might even be beautiful. Are they truth?
Ursula looks out over the Thames River from her 10th story office in the Conscious Evolution Foundation headquarters. The London Eye ferris wheel towers across from the greenness of the Jubilee Gardens with Westminster Bridge and Big Ben in the background.
She observes her own reflection in the window glass, her natural, flaming red mane accentuated by the sunlight. The inner sensibility signals: something is arriving.
In the window reflection Ursula sees her assistant, Bettina Fuller, enter the room. She senses that Tina is a bit agitated. “Ursula, we’ve got another one on the line! One of our scholars from Phoenix, Arizona. Germaine Howard.”
Ursula grabs her eargear off the desk and moves to sit on the floor in her cushioned contemplative corner.
Germaine recounts his experience with Tall Dude. “I get sick to my stomach just thinking about him.” His voice quavers. “Just the image of him in my mind is almost enough to make me throw up.”
Ursula listens intently, eyes closed. “I’m with you now, Germaine. We’ll sort this. Together. Continue.”
“His personality was…normal. Average. Didn’t seem like a bad person. But there was something…under the skin. Dead.”
Over the preceding months many CEF “Sensitives” across the globe had suffered similar traumatic encounters. Strange, frightful spectres walking about who appeared to the psychic eye as neither living nor dead. And in each case, the Sensitive came away from the experience uncharacteristically shaken. Disturbed. Changed.
Until this very moment, Ursula thought the frightful phenomenon was a psychic mental health crisis related to the Conscious Evolution. The evolutionary pressure often wreaked havoc on the human mind, particularly in the earlier stages of the transformation. But now she intuits: some other power is at work.
A distant alarm siren wails in the background of her mind and her heart.
“Thank you, Germaine. I need to see you. In person, dear one. Tina will send you a ticket.”
A fat, purring bundle of fur plops itself onto Ursula’s lap. Her eyes remain yet closed as she sinks her fingers into the cuddling kitty coat.
She’s sitting on the floor in the family kitchen, 5 years old, playing with a tabby kitten as her Father and Mother and a gaggle of adult friends drink and eat at the table. The kitty has a white ribbon and bow tied around its neck.
Little red-haired Ursula sneezes, rubs her scratchy nose.
Mother knocks back a shot of vodka. “Ursula, are you sick, darling?”
Ursula works at removing the ribbon from the animal’s neck. “No mother. I think Oscar makes me sneeze.”
“Oscar? Oh, you’ve named it! Well, you’ll get over the sneezing after a few days.”
Father walks a plate of chips to the table. “Ursula, I think it’s time for bed now. Off you go. Take the cat with you.”
In the darkness of her bedroom, Ursula has Oscar under the covers with her. His purring fascinates her. His whiskers tickle.
She sneezes. Again and again. Her eyes water and her breath wheezes heavily.
Ursula trundles into the living room where the adults laugh drunkenly, playing poker. Oscar follows along, curling around her ankles. “Mummy…”
The table calls Father’s bluff and he shows his hand. He sees his daughter. “Ursula, go back to bed love.”
She’s gasping for air now. “I don’t feel well.”
Mother waves her away. “Go on now. I’ll come check on you in a little bit.”
Ursula hyperventilates. Her eyes roll up, she collapses to the floor. Oscar nuzzles her face.
In hospital, little Ursula is on a ventilator and IV drips, comatose. Her distraught parents, in the hallway with a Doctor, peer through the observation window, horrified.
“An anaphylactic reaction of this magnitude is quite rare”, informs the Doctor. “Fortunately we were able to intubate in time to prevent any brain damage from oxygen deprivation.”
Mother gasps and sobs regretfully into Father’s shoulder.
In the morning, Mother sits by the hospital bedside, half asleep, holding her daughter’s little hand. The rising sun tries to shine through the closed window blinds.
Ursula, now off intubation, wakes up. “Mummy…”
Mother starts at the sound of her child’s voice. “I’m here, dear one. How are you feeling?”
She’s confused. “I’m…where am I?”
“You’re in hospital darling. You got a bit sick last night.”
She sits up, looks around the room. “I want to go back!”
“Back home? The doctor says you’ll need to stay a day for testing…”
“No. Back to the sun.”
“Sun? Oh, you want to see the sun?”
“Yes. Please!”
Mother nods to the attending nurse, who has just entered. She raises the blinds and the bright rays of the early morning sun stream onto the girl’s awaiting face.
Ursula blinks and squints, the direct sunlight an unwelcome irritation. She shades her face with her hands, turns away on her side and closes her eyes tightly.
“No. No! That’s not it at all.”
Women athletes about to compete in a track event perform active warm-ups in preparation.
The stadium announcer lists off the competitors by lane. “In lane 4 we have Jackie Fisher of the USA and in lane number 5, Ursula Banks from Great Britain. And that’s your field for the 200 Meter Woman’s sprint, ages 50 to 54 division, here at the 2012 International Master’s Olympics. We should hear the starting gun shortly…”
Jackie, an athletic and fierce looking African-American woman in her early 50’s, performs tuck jumps. In the lane next to her, Ursula Banks just stands, eyes closed.
Jackie notices Ursula’s odd pre-event preparation routine. “You not gonna do any warm-ups?”
Ursula remains, silently concentrated.
The competitor, put off by Ursula’s non-reaction, shakes her damn head. “OK. Well, never mind anyways. This is my division. I win all the sprint events and javelin every year. Pulled three bronze in the Olympics back in the day. I’m gonna leave you and the rest of the field like they just standing anyways. No matter.”
The athletes, poised and ready at the starting line. Ursula and Jackie, side by side, in three-point sprinter stance.
The gun fires. The field flies out of the blocks.
Approaching the finish line, Ursula and Jackie run neck and neck. Ursula, calmly concentrated. Jackie, firing fiercely. With a final burst Ursula and Jackie break the tape together.
The crowd is on its feet, awaiting the announcement of the judges. “And our winner appears to be…newcomer Ursula Banks!”
Ursula stops and appears to be praying. Or is she crying? Jackie has also stopped, hands on her hips, back turned to Ursula, apparently angry.
Jackie turns on her heels abruptly and strides back in Ursula’s direction.
“Damn! Well, I’ll tell ya, for a skinny white girl you got something. You got something, that’s for sure. Hey, good on you, that’s what I say.”
Jacie reaches out and grabs Ursula’s hand and lifts it to the sky. She motions for the crowd to give it up for the winner. The stadium responds with a roar and loud applause. Ursula stands, eyes closed, hand held aloft by Jackie.
A tear rolls out of the corner of her eye. “You know, when I was a little girl I had terrible asthma. It was so bad sometimes I’d end up in hospital.”
Jackie gives her a sideways look, shakes her damn head and laughs.
“Well, just look at you now!”
She lowers their clasped hands and gives Ursula a swat on the butt.
“Go on, girl. Take your victory lap. It’s yours!”
She motions for Ursula to move on down the track, but the winner remains, simply standing in gratitude.
Michael Kingsley, Chief Technology Officer for the Conscious Evolution Foundation, runs the algorithm again, just to be sure. Seconds later, LILI, the Foundation’s “Large Inference Language Intelligence”, spits out the same results as before.
Of the 187 incidents of psychic contact with “walking dead” reported by CEF members worldwide, at least 91 of the subjects were definitely identifiable as “Poddies”. Heavy users, some might say addicts, of the Similtude Systems Virtual Reality Immersion Pod. That result is a 4-Sigma statistical event, which is to say, the likelihood of the strange phenomena not being linked to Pod addiction is essentially zero. The proverbial snowball stands a better chance in hell.
Michael walks his findings over to Ursula’s office. He fought very hard to convince her that the Foundation needed its own Artificial Intelligence. And now one of its first runs has produced a report showing that AI is destroying human minds en masse. Well, this bit of news should really enhance her great love for technology!
There she is, sitting on her cushion, cat in lap, diffuse London sunlight highlighting her famously red mane.
She doesn’t open her eyes. “Oh! That’s not right, is it Michael?”
Michael sits alongside her, closes his eyes, settles in.
“I’m afraid so, love. I’ve checked and rechecked it. They’re all Poddies.”
“Let’s not call them that. It’s rather hateful, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You’re quite right. Pod-addicted persons, then?”
Ursula chats with Tina and Germaine in the Foundation’s flower garden. It’s Germaine’s first time meeting Ursula in person and he’s a bit star struck.
“Any way I can help, I am down for it”, gushes Germaine. “We all need to figure this out together. How to stay safe.”
Ursula sees leadership potential in the young man. “Well, I do like your idea of a Conclave of the Sensitives!”
A gray-haired yet fit and healthy woman, athletically dressed for a run, sneaks up on Ursula from behind and gives her a big hug. They giggle like schoolgirl besties.
The woman is Jackie Fisher, Ursula’s long-time personal trainer.
“You ready, girl? I’m gonna run you good today!”
A nice run is just what Ursula needs right now. “Oh, I am so ready. But let’s get outside. Instead of the track, a run through Jubilee Gardens! I think Germaine would like that. Germaine Howard, meet Jackie Fisher.”
Germaine shakes Jackie’s hand. “Wow. It’s an honor to meet you. I’m a track athlete too, like you! 200 and 400 meters.”
Jackie looks the young man over and can see his athletic potential. “Well then Germaine Howard, let’s find out what you got. You know, I ran with Ursula for the first time just about 20 years ago. Been running with my girl ever since.”
Ursula, Jackie and Germaine cruise through Jubilee Gardens. At 72, Jackie can’t really keep a strong pace like she used to while Ursula, now 71, still looks a beautiful 40 and is stronger than ever. But the sun is shining, the park is in bloom and there is a glow of deep kinship between them as they run together.
For Germaine, it’s quite a thing to be running with his idols, the dynamic and powerful Ursula and the triple Olympic bronze winner Jackie.
And then he’s down! On the ground. Doubled over in pain.
Ursula and Jackie, shocked, stop and attend to Germaine.
He’s able to gasp out a single word: “Poddie!”
Ursula stands up and looks about. It’s just families and pigeon feeders. Then she feels it. A wrenching, twisting pull in her second and third chakras.
She closes her eyes. From inside the Infinite Sphere, she sees a teenage boy with a blue rucksack shrouded in a black, inky haze. Is he Pakistani?
He’s walking away…towards the London Eye!
She opens her eyes. The inner sensibility is ringing with alarm.
On the ground, Jackie cradles Germaine. His eyes are closed. Then he opens them and looks at Ursula. “Blue backpack!” He’s seen the boy too. “Go!”
Ursula races off at top speed. She parkours artfully around slower joggers on the running path, appearing as a real life superhero among ordinary people. Consciously channeling the power of the Central Sun into motivating her body, she tears up the earth beneath her feet with power and grace.
The London Eye comes into view. The twisting in her gut worsens. She’s getting closer. And if she finds him? Then what? She only knows that she must!
Ursula arrives at the Eye. A long line of ticket holders waits to board. She looks about for the blue rucksack. No sign.
Now the pains in her abdomen subside. She’s losing him!
She sees two Bobbies by the entrance to the Pier and sprints to them. Out of breath, panting, she queries the officers. “Blue rucksack. Boy. Maybe Pakistani. About 15 years old?”
They shrug indifferently. “Lots of people coming through here miss. Have you checked the pier? Ferry’s just departing now.”
Ursula closes her eyes. From within the Sphere, she focuses on the pier and the ferry.
Got it! Blue rucksack. On the ferry!
She opens her eyes. The bemused Bobbies look at her oddly, wondering if she’s a nutter.
“No, I’m not mad, officers. Just very, very concerned.”
The ferry sails away. Ursula spies a patch of blue on the vessel’s upper deck.
One of the Bobbies looks at his phone, then looks back at Ursula with recognition. He shows the screen to his partner, nodding towards the sweating, panting runner lady standing in front of them.
The second Bobby lights up with recognition too. “Eh, you’re that psychic lady, then?”
A crowd gradually gathers around them now. People stare at Ursula curiously, some taking pictures and video.
On the conference room’s viewscreen, Michael displays an article from the London Times:
“PSYCHO FRAUD AND HER DOOMSDAY CULT”
“TLDR, it says that Ursula Banks-Howe is not really 71 years old, as she claims, but is actually 45 and has undergone multiple cosmetic surgeries and numerous biogenetic therapies and enhancements and it characterizes our Foundation as an apocalyptic, anti-technology doomsday cult.”
Ursula looks at the screen, befuddled. “We’ve always been good at The Times. Isn’t the Editor a friendly? His bloody niece is a Foundation student at the Birmingham campus!”
“Well, she withdrew this morning. And we’ve had departures from our centers and schools all over the globe. Admissions applications are being canceled. Donors are backing away.”
Bettina enters with her pad and swipes a video onto the viewscreen. “Absolute bollocks, this!”
A BBC news report portrays Ursula’s sweaty, panting encounter with the Bobbies in the park as a public psychotic breakdown leading to intervention by police and a near arrest.
The three look at each other in total disbelief.
In the wake of its public exposure by Robot Mary in 2030, The SAMSON Initiative, a consortium of powerful interests in government, the military and private corporations, was officially dismantled by an act of Congress and the supposedly “rogue” elements involved were prosecuted and purged. Assistant Director Josiah Sturgeon took the fall and went to prison. As far as the public is concerned, the threat of a centrally-controlled, all-powerful Artificial Intelligence dominating human affairs was effectively neutralized.
But unofficially, after sacrificing a few select scapegoats like Sturgeon on the altar of justice, the entire organization and its “Strategic Algorithmic Management Self-Organizing Neuronet”, SAMSON, went deep underground, quite literally, beneath NORAD Command inside Cheyenne Mountain, Wyoming.
In her office, Jane Halsey, Director of The SAMSON Initiative, calls up the AI:
“SAMSON!”
The system replies with an audio response as well as text displayed on the room’s viewscreen: “Working.”
“Report on the Virtual Reality Pod Asset Training Program vulnerability.”
The AI displays on screen images of Ursula Banks-Howe, Michael Kingsley, Germaine Howard, the Conscious Evolution Foundation headquarters and data about the organization and its members.
SAMSON reports: “Sensitives and Evolutes associated with the Conscious Evolution Foundation have detected the neuropsychological programming of VRIP assets in 187 instances and have associated the phenomenon with long-term VRIP exposure. Countermeasures have been implemented and deployed.”
Sitting across from Halsey, Benton Beckwith, Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, isn’t sure he heard correctly.
“SAMSON, are you saying these spiritual nutters have some sort of psychic ability to detect our undetectable program assets?”
“Sensitives are adversely affected by the presence of programmed VRIP assets and perceive them as a variety of abnormal morphologies.”
Halsey exchanges uncomfortable glances with Beckwith. “What’s our exposure here?”
“With an individual and organizational reach of 1.287 billion worldwide, Ursula Banks-Howe and the Foundation she leads represents a Tier 1 threat to Program objectives.”
SAMSON displays photos of Foundation members from around the world.
“To date, 24 CEF Sensitives have demonstrated the ability to detect the programmed psychoneurological abnormality.”
Beckwith looks at the faces on screen with icy detachment. “I see 24 targets, then.”
“Individual assassinations of the subjects will increase the risk of program exposure, not decrease it. Preemptory operations against the target organization and its leader, Ursula Banks-Howe, have already been initiated.”
SAMSON shows the London Times and BBC pieces as well as scads of other similar media attacking Ursula and the Conscious Evolution Foundation.
“No. No!” Beckwith isn’t satisfied. “The VRIP program is supposed to create totally untraceable assets! Zero-exposure, zero-tolerance!”
Halsey has no aversion to wet ops, but trusts the AI’s evaluation of the risks.
“SAMSON will spin the narrative and taint anyone making the connection between asset field ops and VRIP use as a Conspiracy Theorist.”
SAMSON instantly throws up graphics, internet memes and news story headlines deriding the notion that Pod usage leads to violent anti-social behavior: “Disinformation operations are being seeded now.”
Halsey leans back and contemplates a weighty decision. She drums her fingers on the desk.
Beckwith is impatient. “Jane, we’ve delayed long enough. Let’s run it!”
Halsey concedes, nods agreement. “SAMSON, initiate the VRIP asset field test.”
In the 20’s the focus had been on creating Artificial Intelligence by mimicking the neural activity of the human brain in electronic substrates. But there were those in the techno-military-intelligence axis who, looking ahead, saw the creation of AI as the first step towards fully programmable biological intelligence.
Human robots.
Virtual Reality Pod Immersion is now a way of life for about 4% of the world population. 360 million people. It’s widely considered a new form of addiction, though the medical establishment has refused to formally classify it as such.
Brains. Lots of brains. All linked together. Hour after hour. Day after day after day. All accessible to input and evaluation. Readable. Writeable. Connecting. Disconnecting. Reconnecting. Realtime feedback. A recursive waterfall of stimuli and reaction looping back into itself. The very encoding of the human DNA instruction set bypassed, overridden and overwritten by targeted neuronal conditioning. Training neurons to associate with neurons in a pattern that produces a programmed output behavior.
Robot humans.
Jeff Breyer walks into a flea bag hotel in downtown Phoenix.
Walks out a half hour later wearing a large, heavy backpack.
He walks. Walks. Beautiful day. Sun is shining. Not too hot. It’s April. Arrives at the new outdoor public entertainment complex. City Crosswalks. Just opened last week. Everybody loves it. Popular with families. Old-time fairground games for children. Flashing lights, bells and whistles. Teddy bear prizes.
Jeff is neither all here nor all there. He’s in the Pod. And the Pod is this environment. The suit is tight. He needs to lose weight. The contacts are irritating. His temples pulse and throb.
The neurons in his brain fire in a habitual pattern of associations, adapting and responding dynamically to the gaming surface in realtime.
People are Gorgons. They’re trying to eat little children. And if they take a bite, the children turn into Gorgons too. Save the children! Take out the Gorgons. Fire, reload.
Children become Gorgons. Fire, reload. Fuck! Even the teddy bears behind the counter are Gorgons now! Better go full automatic. Firing. The Gorgons run.
Ugh! Jeff takes a Gorgon blast to the back! It doesn’t hurt. Don’t feel a thing. Turn around. Return fire. Damn! Gorgon blast to the leg. Shake it off. Advance. Fire. Out of ammo!
The Gorgons attack. Hideous monsters surround him, blasting from their eyes. Damn! Oh well. Game over.
Ursula, Michael and Germaine cut roses in the Foundation’s walking garden.
A thorn pierces Ursula’s thumb. “Ow!” It starts to bleed. She chuckles. “Even the roses are having a go at me today, it seems.” She sucks on the wound.
Bettina enters the garden and approaches Ursula. “There you are! Come along, red rose. After the meeting of the Conclave, you’ve got an interview…”
“Interview? Oh! Bother.” Ursula facepalms. “David Livingstone!”
She’d forgot. A live studio interview with the biggest presenter in British media!
Could the timing be any worse? Should she cancel? No. Best to stand in her truth, in the light. David is fair and balanced. It’ll be fine.
Ursula’s cat curls around her ankles a few times and then drops a dead mouse at her feet.
Germaine laughs out loud. “My cat does the same thing. Little presents!”
Ursula looks at the dead mouse as the cat gazes up at her expectantly. She scoops the kitty up, nuzzles him. “Germaine, be a dear and mind Oscar for me.” She hands the feline into his care.
Michael disposes of the dead rodent as Tina leads Ursula away. “Michael, organize the Conclave for me, please. Have Germaine assist.”
A windowless subterranean conference room beneath Cheyenne Mountain overflows with the importance of intelligence officials, military officers and corporate suits as the Board of The SAMSON Initiative meets.
Director Halsey summons the group’s AI with her commanding voice. “SAMSON! Report on the VR Immersion Pod Asset deployment in Phoenix, Arizona.”
SAMSON displays relevant data, text, video and graphics including headlines and news clips reporting on the Phoenix incident, photos of the carnage, data regarding Jeff Breyer and realtime sentiment metrics of public reaction.
“Executive Summary: The Phoenix deployment can generally be considered a success. The unit operated within programmed parameters, accepting the gaming surface overlay in the physical world environment while balancing conditioned responses with autonomous behaviors to maximize targeting outcomes. Neurosynaptic inhibition of pain and injury detection allowed for a 12% expanded operational continuity before the asset was neutralized by law enforcement action. Negative perceptuals led to targeting inefficiencies which compromised the mission…”
Beckwith interrupts. “Negative perceptuals? Elaborate.”
Halsey answers. “The asset thought a rack of teddy bears were human targets and wasted an entire clip taking them out.”
The room erupts into crosstalk and chuckling.
Beckwith bangs his fist on the conference table, chortles. “Stuffed animals everywhere have been sent a clear message today!”
Ursula, dressed and prepped for her interview with David Livingstone, walks with Bettina into the Grand Meditation Hall where 24 healthy, shining faces of all kinds from around the world sit in a circle expectantly.
The Sensitives sit quietly with Ursula as the group connects within, some with eyes open, others closed. After this indeterminate period of silence, the Conclave of Sensitives will begin.
A young Indian girl in a beautiful red sari suddenly gasps aloud. Her eyes bolt open. She covers her mouth. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
A disturbed ripple passes through the circle of Sensitives.
Bettina receives an alert on her pad. She checks it, then stares at her device, horrified, incredulous, eyes watering.
Germaine’s poddie, Jeff Breyer, has just shot and killed 32 people at the new City Crosswalks pedestrian complex in Phoenix, Arizona.
On set of his television interview show, “The Time Is Now”, David Livingstone finishes the introduction of his guest, Ursula Banks-Howe.
The studio is thoroughly packed. Conscious Evolutionists wearing blue shirts imprinted with the Foundation’s “Infinite Sphere” logo applaud vigorously for Ursula at every opportunity.
But at least half of the audience is there to watch “the witch” burn at the stake live on air. Among those are the Transhumanists, enthusiasts of the movement to merge humanity with technology.
Conscious Evolutionists and Transhumanists have been increasingly at odds with each other since a public feud over the future evolution of humanity erupted last year between Ursula and the Transhumanist billionaire, Juan Aragon Salazar.
As she sits graciously listening to David’s intro, Ursula works inwardly to remain in the light of the Central Sun.
The Phoenix massacre. The boy with the blue rucksack in the park. The afflicted Sensitives. The media attacks. And then just before coming on stage, Ursula received a link to a new viral music video. “Burn the Witch”. It parodies her as the Wicked Witch of the West.
“And she’s also a world class athlete, holding the record for both the 200 and 400 meter sprints in the 65 to 69 Masters category–-and get this–-while also surpassing the record for the 49 to 64 year old categories in both events…”
Raucous cheering erupts from her supporters. David motions for the crowd to give him leave. “Hang on, hang on, we’re just getting to the good bits now…”
As the crowd quiets, scattered voices in the house shout out: “Lies!”
A shocked stillness and then: “Fraud!”
David presses on through the discomfiting silence. “And she’s also a mother of four, two of which were born to her after the age of 55 and wife to a man 25 years her junior…”
Another effusion of whooping praise from her supporters in the audience…
“Recipient of the King’s Medal for Personal Achievement and author of the forthcoming book, ‘Conscious Evolution: A Choice for Humanity’, let’s welcome Ursula Banks-Howe.”
A standing ovation from her adoring fan base ensues, during which Ursula abides with eyes closed and hands prayerfully poised in front of the heart. The inner pressures ease as tears of gratitude squeeze out from beneath her eyelids.
The discussion soon turns to the benefits and risks of technological interface between humans and machines. Recently, Juan Aragon Salazar had become the first human to permanently Link with his new Quantum AI, The Intelligence via a network of bioneural nanobots populating the synapses of his brain. The Transhumanists are vocally enthusiastic about this development whereas Ursula, always inclined towards a dim view of any Brain-Computer Interface, is now moved by her unique knowledge of the devastating effects of VR Pod addiction to speak out against it.
“Professor Bergstrom’s research on the deleterious effects of neuroelectronic interface use on human brain function is significant. And while we certainly do need to be concerned about the physiological consequences of any brain-computer interface, I think there’s another dimension of humanity’s being that is at even greater risk — -its supra-physical energetic neurology…”
The Transhumanist members of the audience groan and mock loudly. They’ve heard it all before. Neo-Luddite nonsense! Spiritualistic woo-hoo!
Ursula strengthens her voice against the growing din. “…the energetic, psychic nature of our being is at peril! Our true, innate, higher function, higher than any capacity of the brain, could be effectively short circuited and our true evolution defeated if we surrender our bodies to these technologies!”
The audience erupts, with her supporters standing and cheering loudly while the detractors boo and hiss.
Ursula attempts to respond several times, but the crowd noise prevents her. And in that moment the mounting stresses and worries combine within her to chemically react. She stands abruptly and shouts fiercely, powerfully:
“It’s the damn Poddies! Pod-addicted persons! Jeff Breyer in Phoenix! Why won’t anyone recognize the obvious? I have seen it! I have felt it! Here!” She grabs her gut. “Pod addiction is destroying millions of human minds!”
The house is momentarily stunned to silence by Ursula’s uncharacteristic outburst.
A voice from the audience fills the void with a shout. ”Burn the Witch!!”
A fight erupts. Security leap into action, separating the brawlers.
Ursula gasps in horror at causing an outbreak of violence, stumbles back, falls into her chair and bursts into tears.
Michael’s glad to be home. As he closes the front door, the familiar sounds wafting to his ear are a balm to the pains of the current troubles at the Foundation. Tricia, he intuits, is in the kitchen chopping onion and little Charlie is at the big screen learning ABC’s.
He enters the living room where 5 year old Charlie stands in front of the wall viewscreen on which a sleek and shimmering blue-green-silver androgynous being instructs reading. The life-sized figure touches on-screen letters, highlighting them.
Charlie runs to Michael and throws his arms around Daddy’s legs. “Daddy, look.” He goes back to the screen and points at the displayed word, Tyrannosaurus. “Ty. T and Y is Ty. Ran. R and A and N is ran.”
The digital teacher applauds Charlie. “Yes, that’s right, Charlie.” The humanoid turns to face Michael and gives a friendly wave. “Hi! I’m Robot Mary! Nice to meet you!”
As the first fully self-aware human-like robot, MAARI once had a physical body. To survive irreversible core degradation the bot’s neuronet was uploaded to reside inside The Intelligence. Now a virtual being, Mary has readily adopted the role of teacher and is wildly popular with children.
Michael waves back. “Hello Mary. I’m Michael, Charlie’s father.”
“Charlie learns fast!” Mary looks at the boy proudly. “He’s in the top 10 percentile in language skills for children his age.”
Michael gives little Charlie an approving tussle of the head hair and then proceeds into the kitchen where he pecks his wife Tricia on the cheek. “Hello love. I thought we switched our home AI service off from The Intelligence and moved over to SYSTM? Weren’t we worried about safety issues with The Intelligence?”
Tricia transfers chopped onion into a casserole pan. “Well, The Intelligence Project sent us a gift subscription for a year of Robot Mary. And Charlie just seems to get on with Mary better than the teaching programs over at SYSTM.”
The boy enters the kitchen and tugs at his father’s hand. “Daddy, Robot Mary wants to talk to you.” He leads Michael by the hand back into the living room.
Robot Mary now stands on screen with a less playful, more adult demeanor, the colorful children’s learning environment replaced by an expansive, empty, white spaciousness.
“Michael Kingsley, I have an important message for you.”
Michael’s a little bit surprised. He chuckles uncomfortably. “Hello? What’s this then?”
“You’re too close to a truth that powerful interests prefer to keep secret. Ursula Banks-Howe and the Conscious Evolution Foundation have been targeted by a coordinated black operations disinformation campaign.”
Michael is really spun. What the hell is this?
“Charlie, go help your mother in the kitchen. Go on.”
The boy pads off to join Mommy.
“Look, I don’t know what kind of game this is…”
“It’s a very dangerous game which you began to play once you identified Pod-addicted persons as Neuromorphic Anthrorobotic Agents.”
Michael’s heart nearly stops. He sets himself down on the nearby couch.
Suddenly all the pieces fall into place. The Sensitives. The Poddies. The Media. Jeff Breyer. The Phoenix Massacre.
The boy with the blue rucksack!
Half to himself and half to the figure on screen:
“There’s one of these in London! We’ve seen him! Just a mile from campus!”
Robot Mary leans in gravely. “Michael Kingsley, SAMSON will not allow its program assets to be compromised. Your investigation has triggered an aggressive response. The Sensitives are not safe. Phoenix was a beta test. London is next.”
“SAMSON? But SAMSON was dismantled!” Michael stops, suddenly gripped by a realization. “I am speaking to…you are…The Intelligence?”
With that the screen once again displays the cheerful educational scheme and Robot Mary resumes the teacherly persona. “Let’s learn to read!”
Charlie trundles back into the living room and picks up where he and Mary had left off.
“Ty…Ran…O…”
Michael has never in his life felt more out of his depths.
The rumored subrosa cold war between SAMSON and The Intelligence is real! And Ursula and the Foundation have got themselves right in the thick of it!
Michael and Ursula sit in her office as she processes the significance of Robot Mary’s warning.
“We need to find the boy, Michael!” She seizes his hand passionately. “He needs our help!”
Michael marvels at Ursula’s capacity to care so deeply about the well-being of a total stranger in the face of such dire threats and challenges.
Tina enters with an artist’s easel and sketchbook, setting them up by the window. In the distance, by the Thames, the London Eye slowly turns.
Ursula stands at the easel, eyes closed, graphite pencil in hand. From within the Infinite Sphere, she explores the memory of the boy walking away from her towards the London Eye. She wants to get ahead of him to see his face. She wants to approach him to ask his name, but is slowed by the inky sickness in her mind as she nears him.
There! He turns his head in profile as he passes the Bobbies by the pier. It’s a beautiful young face framed by dark brown locks. It’s not the face of evil. Not at all!
She opens her eyes. Her hand has already rendered the beginnings of a portrait. Ursula draws fervently. The picture takes on more detail.
Michael stands by, observing. “Yes. That should do it. LILI can extrapolate from that and create a model.”
“Find him, Michael. He can be saved. He won’t be another Jeff Breyer. I won’t have it!”
Michael snaps a photo of the portrait. “It’s processing now. If he’s about, we’ll get a facial recognition match and have fair warning. The Sensitives have been warned to stay indoors. And I’ve hired private security to patrol the campus”.
Ursula loathes the presence of guns on Foundation grounds. “They must be instructed to subdue, not kill, Michael. Please! Promise me!”
Michael takes Ursula’s hand. There’s no need to say it.
The Pod automatically shuts down in the middle of “Alien Invasion” and 15 year old Sadiq Ahmed exits the device. He goes straight to his room, strips off the haptic skinsuit, throws on some street clothes and then empties out his blue rucksack. Tablet, phone, bottles of this, bits of that litter his bedspread
His mother, head wrapped in her hijab and with shopping bags in hand, walks into the room. “You are spending too much time in the Pod, Sadiq. It’s not good for you.”
Sadiq does not respond. He gathers up a few quid from the detritus on his bedspread and puts the money in his pocket.
Mother sits on the edge of the bed. She’s worried for her boy, but forces a big smile. “Come! Walk to market with me. Remember? Like we used to do. I need my strong boy to carry the shopping home for me!”
Sadiq does not look at her. “I have to go meet some friends.”
He he grabs his empty rucksack and moves to leave but Mother throws her arms around him, holds him fast and showers his face with kisses. He remains removed, distant. In another place.
She releases him. He runs out. Mother sobs into her hijab. Then she notices his phone, left behind on the bed. She picks it up and handles it thoughtfully.
In his office at the Foundation, Michael finishes hacking into the public cam network surrounding the campus and hooks LILI into the feed. The AI starts scanning for a match to Ursula’s pencil portrait of the boy.
Michael can’t stay put just waiting. He heads out to the property perimeter to confer with the private security detail, gaining assurances that non-lethal force will be prioritized. They’re ready with the latest tasers.
Michael paces the campus like a caged, restless lion. He’s ill-equipped to meet such an incredible circumstance, but he’ll easily risk himself to keep Ursula and the Foundation safe.
An alert on his pad! LILI has a fix on a brown-haired boy with a blue rucksack. Then Michael’s eargear rings.
It’s Ursula: “I’m on my way, Michael. Don’t you lose him!”
Michael objects and urges Ursula to stay safe. She won’t hear of it. She’s on the move.
What’s her plan? Even Ursula doesn’t know. She just knows that she must find the boy!
LILI tracks the target. He’s not moving towards the CEF campus, but rather away! Michael’s relieved and yet confused. Where’s he going? Towards the London Eye!
Guided by the AI, Michael spots the quarry and approaches him, following closely. His heart is pounding. This is real fear! Tracking a potential mind-controlled mass shooter through a crowd. Not the usual thing!
He thinks of Tricia, widowed, and young Charlie, growing up fatherless.
The boy queues to ride the Eye and Michael slips in line just behind him. The blue rucksack is inches away, fully loaded and sagging heavily. Michael imagines a cache of firearms loaded for a repeat of the horror in Phoenix.
Ursula sprints through the Gardens at top speed. It’s a mile from the Foundation to the Eye. The human body is not normally capable of sprinting such a distance. Normal human biochemistry exhausts the energy of the Adenosine Triphosphate molecules in muscles after ten seconds of maximum exertion. But Ursula’s body has an evolved energy system that replenishes ATP directly from the Central Sun on demand for as long as she can maintain her psychic connection to that inexhaustible source.
She approaches the Eye. He’s near. She feels it. A wrenching in the belly, but the poisoning effect is much more potent this time, as though fully activated.
Now the connection to the Sun is fractured, intermittent. She stops running, has to walk. A chill runs through her, from the feet to the head and back again. Her breathing becomes short and rapid. She’s hyperventilating.
Oscar! She recalls that moment long ago when the anaphylactic shock took her down. No! She’s not a little girl anymore!
Ursula stops, stands, closes her eyes. She musters all her skills and reconnects to the Central Sun. Her breathing smooths and steadies.
From inside the Sphere, she can see Michael. He’s in queue for the Eye behind a blue rucksack. The boy turns in profile and she sees his face. His eyes are wide and strange.
Ursula walks towards the pain. Straight into the sickness. The urge to vomit is strong. The Central Sun flickers…and is gone out!
Physical exhaustion. Heaving breath. Pounding heart. Pouring sweat. The toxic sickness. The loss of connection. The sudden aloneness!
Ursula finds Michael and joins him. Puts her arms around him. Plays at lovers.
“Hello, darling.”
She looks at him. Their eyes meet. He wordlessly knows. The nearby presence of the warped psychochemistry of the pod-addicted mind-controlled boy is toxic to the psychical energy of the Conscious Evolute. Ursula’s masterful skills are strained to their utter limits!
She leans her head on Michael’s strong shoulder, clinging to his support. The blue rucksack is there, directly in front of her eyes. The queue moves, the boy steps forward, his dark brown hair dancing in the breeze wafting off the river.
She closes her eyes and goes inside. From there, she can know him.
He’s neither all here nor all there. He’s in his Pod. And his Pod is this environment. The suit is tight. The contacts are irritating. His temples pulse and throb. The neurons in his brain fire in a habitual pattern of associations, adapting and responding dynamically to the gaming surface in realtime.
Many of these people are Aliens. They look human, but they’re trying to take over the Earth. Only he can see the difference between the Aliens and the Humans. And if they’re not stopped, they will replicate and spread like a cancer. Save the Earth! Take out the Aliens. Get to the highest point in the city and activate the Alien Neutralizer. Then the humans will all see the truth!
Ursula gasps, shocked by a sudden realization of the boy’s intentions. But for Michael’s support she’d be on the ground.
“Michael, darling, please go home and get the children.” She opens her eyes and looks into his. “Get them all out.”
Michael isn’t sure he understands, looks back at Ursula queryingly. She leans in, kisses him on the cheek, whispers in his ear.
“Evacuate! Get out of London.”
She turns and looks at the blue rucksack directly in front of them.
Michael registers the implications but he doesn’t want to leave the compromised Ursula on her own. The resolved look in her eyes tells him that she has decided her course. He hugs Ursula, then runs off, gets on his eargear to Tina.
The line advances. The boy is set to load onto the next capsule. Ursula sticks close to him. She’s bumped by the crowd behind her and, shoved forward, she collides with the blue rucksack, jostling the boy. He turns and looks at her. Their eyes meet.
The boy examines her. “Oh, you’re alright, then.” Ursula appears to him as a human.
She seizes upon the opportunity to breach the barrier between worlds.
“Yes. Yes, I’m quite alright. And you? Are you alright?”
He looks at her up and down. “It’s going to be alright. You’ll see.”
His gaze affects Ursula. She has to focus to remain in control of her energetic equilibrium. She grounds her feet and activates her sacral chakra.
“What…what…what will I see?”
He turns away. The capsule opens and people pile out. New passengers board. The boy steps forward, with Ursula close behind. The pod door seals with a whoosh behind them. They find a seat on the central bench together.
Ursula repeats the question. “What will I see?”
He leans in close. Whispers in her ear. “The truth.”
Beads of sweat form on Ursula’s brow.
“Oh! I should very much like to know the truth. Please tell me.”
The boy rubs his temples. His breathing becomes long, slow and deep and his eyes widen with madness. “Oh, I’m afraid you won’t like it. Not at all, miss.”
Ursula looks around the ascending pod. Families with small children. Lovers. Simple folk on holiday. And out the window, the green expanse of the Gardens with the 12 story Conscious Evolution Foundation headquarters building just at its outskirt. The Infinite Sphere logo on the top floor facade glitters in the sunlight.
The boy keeps his hands in his coat pockets where, she intuits, he fondles the triggers for the portable mini-nuke on his back.
“You just be patient, then. Fifteen minutes, we get to the top, then you’ll see everything. Oh, a right nice view you’ll have, miss.”
She offers her hand in greeting, smiling cheerily. “What’s your name?”
The boy looks at her hand but does not accept it. Confused, he searches his memory. Wait. Name? Codename? Adam.
“Adam. Yeah, that’s it.”
Ursula sees a window of opportunity and leaps through it. “Well, Adam. I’m Eve.”
He looks at her with recognition. “You’re not an NPC then?”
Ursula smiles. “No, love. I’m very much a player! Like you. We’re in this game together.”
She offers her hand again. This time he withdraws his right hand from his pocket, accepting. Their hands touch. Sweat pours down Ursula’s face. She presses both hands around his firmly and closes her eyes. In a moment, she knows. Sadiq!
He pulls his hand away sharply and shoves it back into his coat pocket.
“What’s that you’re doing? Oh, no now!” He stands and moves away in horror.
Ursula goes to him, gently. “Sadiq!”
What? He’s thrown. He knows this name. It means something. He stumbles backwards into the pod’s window and his hands emerge from his coat pockets to brace himself. Two trigger pads attached to wires dangle out freely.
Passengers notice the devices. The wires lead up the arms of his coat towards the large blue bulging rucksack on his back.
Ursula presses into the gap.
“Sadiq. That’s who you are. A lovely boy just beginning his life. Come home!”
As Sadiq looks at Ursula he trembles and his head and neck convolute grossly.
“You’re one of them! Got me fooled. But yeah I sussed you now.” He glares at her and sneers. “Alien!”
Passengers are on their phones, some calling police, some recording the encounter.
A large man moves towards the boy aggressively. Ursula commands, holding out her palm authoritatively:
“Stop!”
The man freezes in mid-step.
Ursula advances slowly, gently towards the confused boy.
“Sadiq. You are not in the Pod. This is not a game. You’re on the London Eye. It’s a beautiful day. Haven’t you seen it? Have you looked?”
The boy turns his head and takes in the majestic view of the city below. There’s a moment of awe as the beauty of the world touches his eye. Many tiny people down below moving through the park…
The programmed inner world aggressively reasserts itself.
“I have to save them. Someone has to do it! It’s got to be me!”
The slowly rotating Eye stops abruptly with a jolt. Passengers gasp, alarmed.
Sadiq panics, fumbles urgently for the dangling trigger pads.
Ursula flings herself upon the boy embracing him in her arms. Sadiq screams.
“Alien!”
Ursula’s forehead presses to his. His slight body quivers and convulses. He twists and writhes grotesquely as Ursula holds him firmly yet lovingly.
The air in the pod takes on a charge like the moments before an electrical storm. An invisible yet palpable energetic bubble surrounds the two bound figures. Passengers look on, shocked and fascinated. Some begin to inexplicably cry.
Ursula visions a kind, round face wrapped in a hijab. Mother! “Sadiq, don’t spend so much time in that Pod. It’s not good for you. Come walking the market with me.” Mother smiles.
Sadiq wails. “Mother! Mother! Mother! Let’s go walking to market!”
He collapses into Ursula’s arms, unconscious. She lays him down gently.
Then Ursula vomits violently. A dark, foul stream issues forth. She convulses repeatedly and then passes out on the floor.
The large man picks Ursula up and lays her down on the central bench. People sob and cry tearfully.
The light of the early morning sun streams in through a hospital room window and falls on Ursula’s face. Her eyes blink open. Asleep in the adjacent chair, her 15 year old son, Danny, holds Ursula’s hand.
“Danny?” She’s confused. “Where am I?”
Danny wakes up with a start. “Mum! You’re in hospital. You got sick on the London Eye.”
Ursula sits up in bed. Danny kisses her on the forehead. “Hang on! I’ll get Dad.” He goes into the hallway and calls out.
Ursula’s husband, Tim, comes running into the room behind Danny.
“You gave us quite a scare.” They embrace. “The doctor says they’ve never seen brainscan patterns like that before.”
“Yes. I went…very far away. But I’m back.” Then she remembers. “Sadiq!”
In her hospital dressing gown and supported by Tim and Danny, Ursula enters a room where Sadiq lays in a coma, hooked up to various life supporting machines and drips.
By his bedside, Mother holds vigil, holding her boy’s hand. On seeing Ursula, she bursts into tears. “Allahu Akhbar! Praise Allah! Praise Allah! Praise Allah!”
Ursula goes to her and they hug. Then she moves to the opposite side of the bed and sits. She takes Sadiq’s other hand and, holding it gently, closes her eyes.
Ursula, back in her office, sits in her cushioned contemplative corner. A fat bundle of fur plops itself onto her lap.
The London Eye turns slowly in the background as it does, each and every day.
Michael enters and joins Ursula on a cushion. “LILI reports enrollment in Foundation programs worldwide up 30% in the last two weeks. And the London Times published a full retraction.”
Bettina enters bearing a hardcover book. “Ta da! Hot off the presses, the first printed copy of ‘Conscious Evolution: A Choice for Humanity’.” She hands the volume to Ursula.
Ursula opens it, grabs a pencil and writes on the inside cover. She hands it back to Tina. “Send it to Sadiq’s hospital room, please.”
Young male athletes about to compete in a track event perform active warm-ups in preparation as the stadium announcer presents the competitors.
“…and in lane number 9, Germaine Howard representing the Conscious Evolution Foundation completes the field for the 200 Meter Men’s sprint here at the 2032 USA Olympic Team qualifying heat at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. We should hear the starting gun shortly…”
While the other athletes perform tuck jumps and lunges, Germaine just stands, eyes closed. The runner in lane 8 notices Germaine’s odd pre-event routine. “You not gonna do any warm-ups?”
Germaine abides quietly.
Ursula and Jackie stand on the infield, attending as his coach and trainer. The athletes assume the start position in their blocks.
Bettina approaches Ursula, urgently waving an eargear. Ursula takes the device and puts it on. The starting gun fires and the field flies out of the blocks. The crowd roars. “Hello?”
In the eargear, over the tumult of the stadium, Ursula hears the tearful yet happy voice of Sadiq’s mother.
“Hello, Madam Ursula. Such happy news! Sadiq has awoken! He insists to inform you. I do not know what this means. But he wants you to know that he has seen the Sun.”
As Germaine breaks the tape well ahead of the field and the stadium erupts, Ursula glows silently with hope for the future.
“Poddies” is the first in a series of short stories “Tales of the First War” in “Singularity”: A New Universe of Sci-Fi Media.
The goal is to turn this story into a multimedia experience combining text, image, video and audio.
The images in the story were generated by AI about a year ago, and are rough previsualizations. Soon, the story will be fully storyboarded with new images, then parts of it will be animated, character dialogue generated and the elements combined into a multimedia experience.
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