Chapter One
Emily looked suspiciously into the mirror not really knowing what to expect. The eyes were where they should be as were the mouth and ears and further down the breasts and legs, in fact everything seemed to be just as it was before the transference. It seemed a little too perfect to her. She was expecting something to be out of place somewhere, an eye off to the side, too many fingers, possibly one arm a foot longer than the other. But no, physically she had never looked any different, yet all of this was brand new.
The same thing could not be said for other items in the room. Most of the things that went through the digitization were perfect recreations of the original, right down to tiny scratches she had deliberately put into her desk just to see if it would pick it up in the process.
Other things such as what was now a six-foot tall bead had not gone through the process so well. In the real world it was hardly the size of a pebble, but do to some sort of miscalculation in the digitizing and reproduction it was enormous. Perhaps it was in fact still only pebble size; everything else around it was just simply smaller now.
More than likely though Emily thought to herself, someone fucked up and didn’t pay attention during the process and didn't notice. Things like this however was why she was here, tt was something that Emily hoped to help prevent in the future.
She mused over the reality of this place to herself. This is the test; this is where those mistakes can be made. Get them out in the open and fixed before a full-blown transference occurs.
She made her way out of the bedroom and into the main hallway intent on exploring every room of the two story home which would including the attic and any crawl spaces. She would be noting all the intricate details that the digitizer picked up and reporting anything obvious like the giant bead as flaws. She never found herself doubting the equipment, if she had she would have never volunteered for this. Actually that’s a lie she would have taken any risk to be on this project.
Still the amount of detail was awe-inspiring and pretty much a carbon copy of the original. Each room had its exact replicas of beds and chairs, wall paper and desks. If there was any detail left out, on first inspection she wasn’t able to find it.
When at last she made her way to the living room which was located facing out towards the street, she pulled open the drapes and blinds to look out at this new world. She could see that although the majority of the landscape had been finished much of the housing and streets had not even been started yet. What would soon be a row of beautiful homes was nothing much more than a row of giant white cubes.
As Emily looked over the landscape she noticed that in front of one of the completed homes stood several of the Animates. Standing motionless their bone white exterior gave Emily a chill. There was in fact a very good reason they have been given the nickname ‘Ghost.’ They were simple programmable life forms standing in wait for transference of conscious, completely devoid at the moment of a genetic code. It was just such an Animate that now played host to Emily's concious.
A ring sounded through the house like a thunderclap jolting Emily from her thoughts. It came from the kitchen and she very quickly moved in its direction hoping to keep it from sounding off again. Another thing the digitizers got wrong, she thought to herself. As she made it into the kitchen she removed the receiver just as it had started to ring again. One thing for sure she was happy that it was the surrogates eardrums being blown out and not her own.
“Hello?”
“Emily?”
“None other then.”
“Do you know who this is?”
“A fish monger?”
“I trust you are making a joke.”
“But of course I am, Kyle. One thing though the decibels coming out of this phones ringer puts out almost knocked me unconscious. Could you do something about that?”
“Can you tell me your complete name?”
“Princess--”
The voice cut her off “Could you please take this seriously?”
“Emily Madison English! And you sir do not need to be a grouch.”
“For now I have to make sure you made it through the transference without issue and that you are current. I’ll have Jasper look into any audio problems.”
Current? She thought to herself a moment, is that what they are calling complete recall in the surrogate body now?
“We’ve been seeing issues with sound levels in several areas, we’re going to re-calibrate the digitizer to better calculate sounds in Genesis to real world sounds.”
“God I hate it when you call it Genesis! Genesis was a beginning; we’ve bypassed all of that.”
“I’m sure calling it Test Tube Planet would make our investors much more comfortable.”
“At least it would be accurate." She paused for a moment. "Hey so the communications work are we going to get any computers? I think it’ll be much easier to write my reports in here then having to be pulled every two weeks and have to try and remember. It would be nice to have a cell phone or a wrist watch with two way communicator as well. Nothing fancy, just make sure it comes in pink”
“I am happy you're taking all of this seriously, new plan though, we’re just going to record everything you see and experience the analyst will be much more accurate that way. You can write your report to pin point any personal items that may be relevant such as paranoia, stress, the usually suspects when we do your psych evaluation.
“Really, is it going to record my impure thoughts as well? You know some of those Ghosts are kind of hot. You know in their lifeless, undistinguishable sort of way.”
“That’s entirely inappropriate Emily.”
“Well I’m just saying, I mean let's be frank, the ADM doesn’t distinguish between personal and private moments from any other moments.”
“Am I hearing a change of heart in your voice? You’re not having second thoughts about this now are you?”
“Oh bloody hell no!” she cried in her best fake English accent.
“Emily you’re from California, you’ve never been to Europe and that is easily the worst Russian accent I have ever heard.”
“It was English.”
“Whatever. Let’s get back to business. How are things looking down there?”
“So far so good boss with the only exception so far being a giant bead in my bedroom and a phone ringer that could level a city. The Ghosts are creepy as hell and a few of the houses are just big blocks but otherwise I’d say it’s all well and good beyond what I could have imagined. At least as far as the details of this house go. In fact I was thinking about taking a jog over to the lab site and see if any of that stuff is operational yet.”
“Are you sure? I understand there is a beautiful beach about to manifest into existence only a few short inches from there.”
“No thank you! If the digitizer jacks up there, the whole continent could be covered in real Earth sized sand and water.”
“You’re going to give up an opportunity to actually see water that is one hundred percent pure and free of infestation? Water so clean you can drink it? Water so pure you can actually go for a swim in it if you were so inclined?”
“That almost sounds like you are suggesting I do something fun Kyle. You feel alright?”
“Well do whatever you like for today, tomorrow I’m going to need you to check vitals on several Animates I have located close to you. They will be used in additional phases of deployment. After that you can start your research.”
“Yes, I am aware of my mission Professor. That is why I’m going to check out the lab tonight.”
“So tell me honestly how does it feel to be in a different body?”
“It feels a lot different than just simply being connected to ADM. Actually I should say it doesn’t feel at all yet really. I mean I can touch things but it doesn’t really feel like I’m touching with my own hands. Is that because my real body is in stasis?”
“Not at all. The separation you are feeling is normal and will pass soon as your conscious forgets it’s in an animate body. You’d have experienced it as well if you had just been connected through ADM without stasis.”
“That leads me to ask you, why did you put me in stasis?”
“The decision to put you into stasis was to prevent doubles.”
“Doubles?”
“Nothing you’ll have to worry about. Call me if there are any problems so we can get it straightened out quick.”
Emily shook her head. Theirs was an odd relationship, he never really seemed to see her as a grown up. For the most part he was always impartial of most people and somewhat aloof in most matters, but when it came to ADM and transference he was the only guru in the group. No one beyond maybe the inventors could even come close to his knowledge.
Emily who in her own humble opinion was no slacker herself. Maybe she didn’t have the PHD and maybe she did in fact enjoy life more than the average book worm. Still it made her uncomfortable at times how cold and distant he was when they communicated. She usually just chalked it up to his literal hundreds of hours in other people's heads and when that excuse didn't work she just imagine him in his underwear. It didn’t relieve any anxiety but at least she got a good laugh out of it.
She looked at her wrist expecting her watch to be staring up at her, but in an instance she remembered that her watch was back on her real body. Something she would take note of and remind Jasper in the Digitizing group to fix for her. It would be the only way she would know the difference between night and day as the inner shell had been set to daylight 24-7 until they were finished generating the structures. It was something she could use to her advantage as more light meant more time to explore and there was plenty already here for her to check out. Besides Ghosts don’t sleep; at least they didn’t need sleep. She could stay awake as long as she wanted really.
Kyle sat in the observation booth looking down at the thing he had a hand in creating. It was massive and exact down to every single detail. A perfect recreation of the planet earth with the only real difference was the fact that here they could control every aspect of it. They could use it to see the cause and effect of anything in real time that the mind could dream up, and they had.