Automorphs: Transformalisms, #1

Chapter 1: Initialization

Cold sleep, ideally, would have been just that. Long sleep, short time, and the passengers wake up at their destination, however far away.

New life, new planets, no memory of the passage.

But bright kids never quite know when to leave things well enough alone.

It started with the short trips around the solar system. Even when they were measured in years, there were precious few people who'd give up a year or three asleep if they didn't have to.

Captains, and the companies running the ships, want nice quiet trips. No troubles. And, more importantly, they don't want to have to spend the money entertaining the passengers. Not if they don't have to.

Gamers to the rescue. An infinite number of creatives, bashing keyboards and memory chips and hard drives, and entertaining the deadheads becomes the simplest of things.

Plenty of save points, all the spare cpu cycles and memory space the ship can provide, and more game types than anyone but a database manager can list. Then it was just a matter of pointing out that, in combination with cold sleep, a passenger could have all the varieties of entertainment they could possibly want, in endless combination. All they had to do was slip into a pod for a nice quiet place to keep their body safe while their mind tackled the important stuff.

Even the autodidacts, the nervous sorts who started off trips wanting to learn languages and maths and history, found that a game or two, every so often, helped things along. Even better, once the history buffs found out how to consistently write true to life game setups that included actual events and historical figures, playing at life turned learning into pure entertainment.

Even the curmudgeons signed on, once they realized they could pick from universes of games that didn't involve dealing with other people. Sail the earth alone, trek the Rocky Mountains as a trapper in the 1800's, go looking for Timbuktu or Tut's tomb or Machu Picchu at its height?

Hey, we've got it all. From Elvis in Las Vegas to the Grand Guignol, from the games of the Iriquois to the games of empires across millenia and continents, every personality and every person had their dreams and nightmares available to while away the hours.

By the time the deep-space crawlers came along, the decade and century ships pushing through space one star at a time, the psychologists had even got in on the act.

It seems that they realized that, even with the body in cold lock, if the mind was working for twenty, forty, a hundred years, the subjective time would take its toll. Eventually. But if the personality could be convinced to take a little vacation...

The idea was simple. Dive into a new universe, reset the subjective mind so that the passenger was re-born, renewed, leaving no memories of past lives to tangle up the timestreams and plague the waking self.

No baggage. No scars. Only fresh starts, fresh ideas and the next game to play.

It took some work, though. The computers had to know, know and understand down to the id and the ego and the childhood memories, what each and every passenger really was, in their deepest darkest mind. Who they were, where they came from.

What their personality was in the nuts and bolts. Thus, the first game played, no matter what the passenger picked, the computer was playing its own game. Learning the who's and what's, the patterns of the life of the mind necessary to record the person.

And then put that person aside, in safe memory storage, so that their next virtual life didn't have to remember. Besides, no one wanted to remember all the times they died in game.

You don't have to worry. They still wore scrubs. A tech doing the little things necessary to the experience needed to look the part.

He didn't respond, at first. Then he remembered what the tech said. No, I'm not worried. Honest.

The tech didn't respond. She didn't need to. They both knew he'd have been happier to have a root canal, no local, than sit in the chair and let her attach the tubes and electrodes.

She went about her business, quiet moves and needle pokes, Here, there's just one more and you're done. She kept up with the checklist, and he kept up with trying to think about anything else besides where he was and what she was doing.

Ok, I'm done here. Doctor Serenge will be here shortly.

He started to sit up, ran into the hand she'd placed on his chest to keep him in place. Why's the doctor coming? Didn't you already do everything needed? His heartrate picked up. Drops of sweat broke out across his forehead.

She was used to it. She just likes to check in with you, that's all.

'The little touch that means so much,' he told himself as he settled back into the chair of the pod. You're sure?

She smiled. I'm sure. You need some music to help pass the time? Maybe a video?

A professional. He liked that, even as he worried that her professionalism wouldn't let him see if anything really was wrong. He shook his head. No, no music. I'll have enough to listen to on the trip.

She nodded, and left him to his thoughts.

They wound up on him. The what-ifs, the what-might-have-beens. The things he was leaving behind.

The doctor wasn't long getting to him, objectively. But there was plenty of time for his mind to be ready when she came into the pod, pulling a little rolly stool along to sit next to him.

How are you, Mr. Gains?

Listen, Doc, maybe I shouldn't do this, it's not like things are all that bad for me here. Or, maybe I should just go for a nice long sleep, no games, no worries, right? He was nodding, trying to wave his hands now without jostling the tubes and wires. Just, you know, nice and quiet and wake up on the other side of the galaxy.

She waited him out, nodding and hmming and hahhing in all the right spots.

When he ran down, and ran out of excuses, he sat back in the chair, closed his eyes for a minute, and then opened them to look her in the eyes. I'm being stupid. Silly, right?

Not at all. You're just nervous. Want to know something?

He frowned. Ok?

I'm nervous too. She smiled, slow and steady.

He frowned some more. Really?

Yeah, but it's ok. I'm nervous that you're going to miss out on a few good times while you get used to it. You're going to have a few adventures, Mr. Gains, and I want to make sure that you're set and ready for them.

She smiled again, and this time he echoed her smile. Weakly, but he did breathe and smile.

She reached out to check his pulse, and wipe the sweat from his forehead. We're all set up to do whatever you need to be comfortable and happy while the ship's underway. If you're stressed, we can handle that. She looked up from the monitors, straight at him, until he nodded along.

Stress is normal, it's what's supposed to happen. But, if I can help you along, before you fall asleep, then you won't have to work through it in your first round of games. And, you'll be ready to enjoy the experience immediately.

He nodded again. His face, well it didn't relax. Not exactly. But he did accept that he was going to face the inevitable. The resignation he showed was the last echo, she thought, of whatever he'd put up with that had brought him to make the decision.

She went through the last of her own checks, quietly, humming a bit and watching her patient's heartbeat slow to steady calm. The other monitoring signals followed along, and then it was time.

Ok, Mr. Gains, you're ready now. Just lay back in the chair, take a nice long nap, and when you wake up...

Everything's going to be better. Right. He closed his eyes and tried for the quiet place, the one that had been there when he'd been able to sleep deeply, way back when before life intervened.

She rolled her chair out of the pod. It breathed closed, whispering mechanics and pressures matching. She checked the signals screen, waited for everything to show green and nominal.

And then it was on to the next patient.

Her tech was waiting for her at the end of the rounds. Serenge fell into pace as they headed for the clean room exit. Did anyone stick out to you, Amy? the doctor asked.

Amy paused with her scrub top half off, working her memory for the morning's rounds. You're worried about someone?

Serenge pushed her scrubs and lab coat into the laundry bin. Not worried, exactly. Ms. Lain and Mrs. Samala are well inside normal range, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Alezakar barely stayed awake long enough for me to finish my exam. Mr. Gains looks like he's the only one that's going to end up with a rough start to his trip.

How many reboots, do you think? Amy asked. She pushed her own laundry into the bin, and waved for her boss to proceed her into the air-locked clean room exit.

Serenge considered what she knew of the Gains case history, and the stress signals he'd showed in the examination. Three, maybe four. They're all looking for a new beginning, but he's having some trouble with his identity.

The tech frowned at that. It's a natural reaction.

I'm not judging him. Losing your family like that has its effects, that's all. For Mr. Gains, it looks like he lost who he is along with them. I suspect it's going to take him a few tries to find out who he might want to be, in-game.

The pair waited for the clean room lock to cycle, showers and drying stations, then they went on to the outer changing room, and another set of scrubs. They'd cycle through, daily, for another month before the ship set out on its passage.

A month here or there didn't mean much on a thirty-year trip. The pause was the company's way of insuring the cold-sleep setup was well-established before the ship left. It also gave them time to do their checkouts on the ship.

Then it would be the crew's turn to settle in for the long nap, and wait for the time to do it all again in reverse.

Inside the game world, the passengers were responsible for, if not much aware of, building the world that the crew would enter. Doctor Serenge wondered what sort of adventures awaited.

Not that the worlds they built were necessarily shared. There was a choice at every stage of construction. Minds awaited, the computer uploaded, and personality became the first, and inviolate, save state.

Then the choices really began. Do you want to play a game?

Lany Gains wondered what would happen, if he just chose not to? The computer helpfully provided an answer. The misty corridors he walked in his mind turned to a field, sunlit but only just past dawn. Bees buzzed, flowers tilted in the wind.

He shook his head, and the computer provided a different setting. A cabin in the snow, a whiff of smoke coming from the chimney. He smelled tea, no, coffee waiting. The windows were just iced over, yellow firelight scattered around the ice and glowed on the snow in front of the cabin.

There was a recliner in there, he imagined. Books stacked to the rafters, decks of cards and chess boards ready to go. He wondered if the computer would play the opposite side, and if so, what sort of appearance it would take.

He pushed the door open, found it laid out just as he'd imagined. He could sleep on a couch in front of the fire, if he wanted. Or, in the nook tucked up against the rafters.

Lany settled into the recliner, mug of coffee warming his hands. He let the steam wreath his face while he considered his options.

Not that there are any, really? he asked the crackling fireplace.

The computer didn't push him, yet. There was time, and more than time.

Lany set the coffee mug aside to look through the books and magazines, even newspapers. I haven't seen a real newspaper in forever. Not since he was a kid, really. He'd shuffled through school, took a daily newspaper just because it was an easy way to get through the political science class.

And then dropped the habit like a hot rock as soon as he could. He didn't mind the sports pages and the comics, even the obituaries. But the sheer noise of the daily world overwhelmed him. He'd had enough trouble just keeping up with what he needed to get through the day. Working out how much trouble everyone else was getting up to was usually too much work.

He pushed the paper around on the coffee table, the old habit coming back easy. He was delighted when he felt the ink rub off on his fingers, and the crinkle of the newsheet that accompanied it.

He laughed out loud when he found the daily comics section.

It wasn't until he'd moved on to the magazines that he realized the dates on the papers matched up to the rough timeframe he carried in his head. They must be downloading everything, right up 'til we leave. Computer, are you going to let me know when we leave?

There was no reply. Right. State secrets, and all that. And the idea that, up front, some measure of passing time would help him settle into the routine. By the time the dates on the papers stopped updating, he was supposed to have entered the timeless everywhen of the true dream state.

Lany looked only briefly at the titles of the books arrayed around him. They were stacked to the rafters; the pull of the stories overwhelmed him, just now. So he looked for something else to take his mind off the weight of words and worlds.

Tobacco? Beer? They were there, now. A jar of loose pipe tobacco sat on the mantle, a variety rack of pipes next to it. Just as it should be, I guess.

And a fridge full of beer, sodas, milk. Even Kool-Aid. He chuckled, especially at the last. The laugh was a little weak, though.

He'd been responsible for keeping the Kool-Aid pitcher filled for the kids.

Lany pushed his mind away from the subject he