anything else this world hid. Her skin no longer burned, her pains were absent and her body felt cold. Skin rose into minute bumps as hairs attempted to catch the heat and when she looked at her body, it appeared to be healed and illuminated by the light. Subjects of thought turned to an explanation, one she must admit to, Amber was delirious from a state of acceptance soon to be followed by immanent death.
Closing her eyes, she pulled in her last breath and released. System check codes columned down against a black backdrop as they attempted to confirm her suspicions. The augments disagreed with her suspicions as they registered pain receptors were calmed and damages were fully repaired. Opening her eyes once more, Amber gazed at her surroundings.
A vast chamber, buried under the surface, glowed and pulsed with an organic luminescence as rivers of fluorescent light flowed all around her. The current gathered into one meandering torrent of light. It flowed through the cave and unveiled the mystery of why the floor was soft. Amber’s eyes began magnifying her natural vision by a thousand fold and what she saw amazed her still.
Armies of microbial machines constructed the flooring, walls and ceiling inside the cavern. Each was capable of being an independent entity, but all worked in communion for a greater goal. They were flexible yet protected by rigid hexagonal walls flanked by four flagellum divided equally over each side, and each of the cells used the appendages to link each other together.
The unison in which these beings attained was phenomenal. Spectrums of colour varied heavily as they rippled throughout the cavern, showing how vast this colony of microbial machines was. Distance calculations estimated the hollowed out area she was in had reached nearly 1.6km in length and even that was ignoring the thick concentrations of microbes supporting the roof and walls. Some may have described it as majestic, Amber saw it as an opportunity to study. With newly repaired tendrils, she rolled all except one into a ball, the index tendril outstretched toward an outcrop of cells. Drawing closer to the cluster, she studied the reaction, each of the illuminating cells parted way before the tendril even dreamt of touching. The river of light glowed brighter; it could no longer be ignored.
Situational analysis soon speculated at an intellectual presence being in command of the masses of hybrid cells. Retracting the outstretched tendril, she noticed a response from the colony.
Hairs on her body rose as she sensed a malign audience observing her movements. Turning to see the observer behind her, Amber found only pillars of light further into the body of the cave system. Approaching the pillars of light, Amber saw that they were towers of intriguing symbols suspended in the air. One set of symbols attracted her attention the most, a set made of two identical worms with scales and defined heads. They were creatures she had never seen before, Database and encyclopaedic knowledge resources couldn’t identify what they were, but human curiosity got the better of her. Wrapping her fingers around the light projection unleashed a reaction she had never anticipated. A stunning red pulse radiated along the pillar of symbols, forcing the images to vanish from view. Virulently, the red light infected the dancing colours flowing inside the cave and everything went black.
Then a tune on an instrument she definitely recognised echoed through the cave. Slow presses on piano keys followed by a backing of reversed music and suddenly the Goosebumps rose when music really kicked in with the drums. Projected in front of her from a pool of light were images of a control panel, suddenly turning to a picture of blue skies through a window. White clothed human hands shook with another as she soon realised she was seeing a memory. Back down on the panel she saw the hand press a button to ignite the displays into a flurry of lights and symbols. Indiscernible words sung beautifully from a language she couldn’t understand as she witnessed an exodus from a Planet. Out of the huge window she saw other vessels leaving the planet. As the song ended, the lights returned and she felt a fluid running from her eyes to the floor. She had not noticed the tear of joy rolling down her cheek as she realised what she was within. The entity was a triumph of technology from a time before the information collapse.
In trying to remember the event just past, her own memories were being replaced by another person, another childhood. One of the memories taking hold, she saw anthropomorphic robots wandering the streets of the colony in her dreams. As the roots of her old self began falling apart, the lie of Amber Sallyn crumbled. Realisation at her false nature caused paranoid delusions to surface. As she scratched and dug nails deeply into her, the pain released tension. She felt the slow ebbing of fluid on her hands, although this did not sufficiently detract from her current predicament. Her life she was given turned to ash as the lies were burned away with the light of truth.
Out of the confusion one name stood out in the echoes of her true past, Sally Burrows. She saw the hand written words clearly on a book she was carrying. Like the former Volg, the shell she was in, is now simply a disguise to fool others. As she stood up she realised why she was afraid of enclosed spaces, it wasn’t because of the attack, it was a mechanism to prevent her from relapsing. That is the reason relapses occur, many had lingered too long in their fears, the prevention mechanism. When subjects overcome their fears, they overcome their false identity. The power the dark and the confined spaces had over her were no longer capable of taunting her mind. Sally was free and now she could choose her own fate within the human community.
Before her, a blue holographic text appeared, various languages continuously exchanged with one another until one she recognised all too well confronted her sight. “Stop!” she barked as data script and command lines wrote in a dialect so simple, it was hard to discern initially.
“Boot: Sys.entity.rotate:180”
Computers in her lenses translated the basic code to ‘turn around’ and she complied. Receding light unveiled a tall tortuous body raised from the vast colony of cells. Its body pulsed with arteries and veins of light, while a denser and more unusual category of cells formed an unusual yet similar bone structure. Ropey arms built around segmented joints like the ones in her tendrils forced her to look at her own augments to fully understand why it had taken such a form. A face with few features looked emptily at her as eyes of glass saw her as an inferior being and a crest supported by three distinct prongs repeated the beautiful aurora. Behind the translucent skin she saw something familiar in shape forming the skull of the entity.
“What are you?” Sally said inquisitively, the crest of lights stopped radiating colour in response. From where the mouth should have been, ripples flooded the fluid skin of the entity and it responded with her question in a far more ominous tone and more distinguished voice. It had adopted a male tone and inflection to its words. Cocking its head, the being before her then rippled again. “The Intrepid Discovery. Is such an answer sufficient?”
“No, I want to know where you came from and how you came to be!”
“The memories should have been sufficient to understand. They are part of me and I am part of them.”
“So you are a singular entity then?”
“If it satisfies your curiosity then yes, this one is a singular entity for now.”
“There are more like you?”
“Are there more like you?”
“I am the one asking the questions here.” She barked with venom in her words
“I am the one capable of rendering you down to your basic components here.” The creature said calmly. “”You are the intruder here; my questions have a greater validation over yours. If you intend to capture me for study, it will be a difficult process to perform.”
“Were you human at one stage in your life?”
“That terminology has not been used here for a long time. More than three hundred Terran years ago. When my purpose so far was undefined.”
“Terran years? What measurement of time is that?”
“Three hundred and sixty four point two five days. Plus or minus a few micro seconds.”
“That’s very close to a normal year on the source world.”
“Source world? Would such a place be called Earth?”
Her memory files ran through the encyclopaedias stored within her head for examples of earth and she saw the Source world. Petabytes of information lit up her retinas with images of a blue and grey world covered in lights, surrounded by Stations and starship dockyards. Then the alien presence unleashed a radiant hologram into existence. The spherical object was covered with masses of blues, yellows, greens, greys and whites. Topographical data from the memory banks aligned near perfectly with the object presented to her holographically with exception of less landmass. Water levels had risen to consume much of the lowland surface, while much of the colours were washed into grey super city districts.
“Yes.”
Writhing one of its arms to her head, the creature gently stroked her face, soon the Intrepid Discovery embraced her.
“Finally, our world-brothers are among the stars.”
“How long ago did you leave Earth?” She said after escaping its embrace.
“Approximately eight and a half centuries ago” The head tilted and the light spectrum shifted from tones of green to veins of blue. Bathed in sorrowful light, Sally found herself confronted by a very lonely being. The entity was a true outcast of both nature and