Life After Death
Racing around the computer lab from one giant wall mounted computer drive to another, their gray surfaces lit up with multitudes of lights flashing in warning; a slender young man punched in code after code in an attempt to override the countdown to destruction that was calmly announced through the speakers in the wall. The sweat dripped down his face as he paused briefly and glanced up at the face of the beautiful woman outside the room beating her fists on the locked glass door. He shook his head as she pleaded for him to unlock the door and let her in. He resumed his mad rush around the room, the taunts of the AI he had unleashed intermingled with the soft voice announcing the countdown spurred him on.
“How could I have been so stupid?” He thought as he failed repeatedly to shut down the AI’s control of the computer systems. “ I was only thinking about myself, instead of Section. I thought building an AI would be an asset,
not this...this abomination.”
Determination gripped him when the only solution to prevent the destruction of Section One and the death of those he loved and cared for presented itself. With a quick move, he began pulling up cables from between the towering gray cabinets in front of him. The AI watched his every move on the cameras placed around the lab and became concerned at the change in his creator’s actions. A whining quality now came through the speakers and the taunting stopped. The AI wanted to know what the young man was doing. As the female voice continued the countdown the AI had initiated, the man who many thought of as a wimp, the geek of Section firmed his grip on the thick black cables where they were attached in the walls of the computer cabinets. Looking over his shoulder, he saw his friend Walter banging on the glass, yelling at him. Operations and Madeline were there also...just watching. Nikita continued to scream his name, begging for him to stop.
The hidden love he felt for her swelled throughout his mind giving him the strength he needed to do what had to be done. Dragging his eyes away from Nikita and Walter he looked into the nearest camera lens to give the AI his ultimatum. Then, when time had run out for both of them he ripped the cables out of the cabinet walls and forced the ends sparking with live electrical current against his chest.
The pain was intense as a burst of white fire seized his body, then ended in darkness. Then from darkness he felt his mind pulled up out of his body. Hovering, he gazed down at the tableau of grief in shock. He couldn’t understand what had happened. Why was he floating up here?
Nikita had gained entrance to the room and was kneeling by his body, the pale length of her hair draped over his chest as she held his hand and cried. His best friend Walter stood frozen, wo rk-worn hands pressed against the glass wall tears slowly trickling down his grizzled cheeks. Operations and Madeline were the other side of the door looking through the glass. Operations, he noted with satisfaction, looked shocked.
“Didn’t think I had it in me to do something like this, did ya?” The formless entity muttered.
Next he turned his attention to Madeline; her normally perfectly schooled features reflected deep sadness. Suddenly, reality crashed down on him as his mind began to rationalize the truth of the moment.
“I’m dead...I’m really dead!” Unable to watch the people he cared about grieve over his dead body, he shifted his focus inwards. “Is this death? I thought you just...were gone,” he questioned.
While never receiving any religious training, he had studied different philosophies throughout his short life. With all the death surrounding the environment he was immersed in as long as he could remember, he had an intense curiosity about th e soul and what happened to it after the body was gone.
“I don’t see any bright light, and there isn’t anyone waiting for me,” he thought to himself. “I could use an angel right about now; this is just too weird.”
In answer to his request he felt himself drawn upwards into the fiber optic system in the ceiling above. He bathed in the soothing flow of data as it streamed around his incorporeal being. As he drifted amongst the threads of information flow, his analytical mind was bombarded with many problems that needed resolution as soon as possible, he realized there was an insane purpose for his situation. With the speed that he was known for in life, he formulated a plan. Without difficulty, he was soon ensconced in the main computer. It was easy to weave his consciousness into all of the programs in the database. Instantly, he was in control of every operational system.
Without effort, cameras adjusted giving him visual access to every inch of the huge faci lity. Curiosity led him back to the place of his physical death.
The lab remained unchanged, the wall to wall rows of computer drives, their lights no longer blinking, dead, lifeless, just like he...Squashing that thought before it could surface, he sent threads of his consciousness racing throughout the systems looking for evidence of the AI program that had caused his death. In the space of a heartbeat, he was satisfied that the AI had been destroyed by the sacrifice he had made. With an imaginary deep breath of relief he continued his macabre survey.
His body, with the round, black burn marks on the tee shirt he remembered pulling on earlier that morning still lay grotesquely splayed out on the gray concrete floor. Nikita was still on her knees, tears flowing down her face. Michael, his black suit somewhat rumpled, stood next to her, his hand on her shoulder. Strangely, the level 5 operative had dropped the ingrained Section mask as he looked down on the lifeless for m. Sorrow, as well as something else not quite identifiable was there. Then the soul remembered. He had witnessed that look on Michael’s face once before; when Nikita had stood up to Operations and refused to cancel innocents during a mission, it was admiration. A burst of pride flowed through his consciousness making him feel almost giddy with happiness as he puffed out the mind-made picture of his scrawny chest.
“Michael is proud of me! The computer nerd, the geek, the guy that’s scared of his own shadow.” The emotions abruptly came to a screeching halt as he looked at his best friend.
Walter had moved inside the lab, the bandana, which was normally tied around his wrinkled forehead; was now held in fists that twisted it into a tight rope, before using the dark blue to swipe at his grief-stricken eyes. His shoulders were slumped and his body stooped. He appeared to have aged decades in just a few minutes, the horror of watching his friend die in order to save S ection and everyone within it‘s walls was tearing the old man apart.
Unable to watch Walter’s grief any longer, the consciousness, which was all that was left after the heroic actions of the young man being grieved for below, moved on and the red light above the camera dimmed.
Returning the main focus of his concentration to comm, he sent out queries into the status of all missions on board at the current moment. Making a few adjustments here and there, he was soon satisfied that the profiles would be maintained and again found himself thinking about his situation. Nothing really made a lot of sense. It was beyond his comprehension as to how his soul had ended up within the computers of Section One.
“It really wasn’t so bad,” he mused. “I can do almost everything I did before; the only thing I’m missing is a body.” Giving a mental shrug as he adjusted a sensor before the technician caught the problem, he continued to mull over the new aspects of his existence. “In a way, I always dreamed about being a computer, now I am. So I got what I wanted.” A stab of anger knifed through him as the memory of the AI rushed in. Suddenly, the answer he had been looking for hit him. In response to the onslaught of feelings causing his control to slip, lights began to flash on consoles as alarms blared.
Technicians in front of monitors typed furiously at keyboards to resolve problems that had appeared from nowhere, the soul that now controlled the computer systems was overwhelmed with revulsion at what he had become.
Gradually, he regained control and as each flashing light quit blinking, the alarms were silenced. The technicians looked at each other puzzled, but glad the strange phenomena were over, before settling back into their routines.
“I have become the same thing as an AI, the thing I was trying to destroy!” The psyche, which was all that was left of Seymour Birkoff, screamed into nothingness.
Now he knew where the s oul went. It found it’s own personal hell.