The Infinite Evolution - Conversion (56 page)

Serafina said, “If I removed
myself from cover I would have been blown away.” She added, “After
they drove by my location I knew I was on my own, so I took shelter
in a nearby underground base camp with a group of what I perceived
to be refugees. Luckily for me the blast radius of the ordinance
did not affect where I was, otherwise there would have been no
chance of my surviving.”

“
Yes, I agree, we were very
fortunate to get you back. For now, I think you have given much
needed answers to the questions we were pondering. Of course, we
will have to verify your report,” said one of the senior
officials.

“
Yes sir, of course sir.”

“
Now, I would like to inform you
about Spencer. He is still alive, at least we believe he is,”
advised another senior official.

“
I am sorry, sir, did you say
Spencer?”

“
Yes, Spencer. I thought you were informed
about his consciousness being downloaded to our
facility.”

Serafina acted truly surprised
and replied, “No, sir, I had no idea. I just assumed he was
MIA.”

“
Well in a matter of speaking he was, but that
was only after he downloaded to Izri’s shell. I wouldn’t be
surprised if someone from the other side purposely kidnapped him,
and if that was the case they certainly did a poor job of detaining
him, at least mentally that is.”

Serafina sat there in shock, but
was still able to play along, “Yes, sir, it sounds that way,
sir.”

As one of the senior officials
explained their encounter with Spencer to Serafina, he kept it
brief. “Towards the end of Spencer’s stay with us he mentioned he
had some information he wanted to share. Would you happen to know
what that was?”

Serafina was able to do a scan of
the senior official’s minds and realized they had nothing on her.
Fortunately for her the three were Earth humanoids and were unable
to detect the scan. On the other hand, all three senior officials
had a mental constitution that was strong. Due to this Serafina was
unable to obtain any specific details regarding the encounter with
Spencer. Serafina broke the mental link, paused for a moment in
order to choose her words carefully, and decided the best response
was, “No, sir, I do not.”

“
I see. There’s one more matter
to attend to Serafina,” said one of the senior official.

Serafina replied, “Yes, sir, what would that
be?”

“
You are now the highest ranking
official from Tureis who represents the Floater’s movement on
Earth. Because of this, you will act as a representative when the
time comes.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Good, now go get some rest. You
are dismissed.”

As Serafina stood up and left her
debriefing, she felt an empty pit in the bottom of her stomach as
she thought to herself, “How in the world is this possible. I
watched his body burn,” then she recalled there was no mental
activity prior to the cremation. This brought a great deal of
concern to Serafina not only because Spencer knew about the truth
regarding her past, but there may now be an unaccounted
consciousness within this facility’s mainframe, or even worse out
in cyberspace. “But is that even possible?” said Serafina out loud,
“I hope not.”

“
Where are we going?” asked Jade.

“
We’re going to Vermont, it is
too dangerous here. As you know, your dad had an uncle who left him
a cabin in Brattleboro. There’s no electronic paper trail that
links this location to your dad or to me,” replied
Reece.

“
How is that possible?”

“
Let’s just say Vermont has a
different way of living than some other parts of the country, and I
mean that in a positive way.”

“
What about the car and our PICs, will they be
able to trace them?”

“
Absolutely not, I’m running a
jamming device that even Scott wouldn’t be able to
crack.”

“
So what’s the plan, drive to Vermont and hide
out until the download occurs in three days?”

“
Well, considering we have the most powerful
corporation in the world after us who has just as many resources as
our government, then yes. Unless you can think of a better
plan?”

“
Well don’t you have proprietary information
on technologies that only Central Circuit knows of?”

“
Yes,” replied Reece curiously.

Jade laughed, “Well?”

“
Well, what?” said Reece starting to get
annoyed.

“
How does that saying go? ‘Keep
your friends close, but keep your enemies closer’ or something like
that.”

“
Ok, you really need to stop speaking in code.
What in the world are you talking about?”

“
Technology Gold,” said Jade.

As soon as Jade said those words Reece knew exactly
where she was going.

“
Jade, I know I have told you this a thousand
times, and it has been documented officially, but you are a
genius.”

“
Thanks,” smiled Jade.

Reece started to think aloud, “I
have a contact within Technology Gold, and he is the Vice President
of Production, what is his name? Borgatti, that’s it Joe Borgatti.
I bet he would love to learn about Adam’s schematics. I’m sure if I
teach him what I know they could put us in some type of protective
custody. They have just as many resources as Central Circuit. Heck
they hold most of the defense contracts.”

“
So what are we going to do?”
asked Jade.

“
We’re going to Vermont. There I
will put together the necessary information, and I will somehow
reach out to Borgatti in a way that does not put us in jeopardy.
I’ll need some time to figure this out. For now sit back and enjoy
the ride, we’re already coming up on I-91 north. We should be there
in no time.”

“
Lovely,” replied Jade knowing this was going
to be quite a conversion.

As Spencer continued his quest to
absorb as much data as he could he learned from a data terminal
that belonged to an employee of Central Circuit who lived off site,
that Adam was currently in transport. According to these logs,
Central Circuit decided to temporarily scrap the project and move
Adam to a facility in Fort Lee, Virginia. He proceeded to access a
data farm in California that stored backups to Central Circuit’s
non-classified projects. There he was able to learn of the GPS tag
of the vehicle that was transporting Adam and discovered Adam was
currently in an armored van heading south on I-95. After he
confirmed Adam’s whereabouts, he relayed part of his own
consciousness off a satellite and downloaded it directly into
Adam’s mechanical cerebellum. Spencer took inventory of how much
space was available and confirmed that in order to download his
full consciousness he was going to have to overwrite Adam’s
program. Knowing what he had learned from Reece, Spencer was
certain Central Circuit had created a full backup of Adam’s
artificial intellect before the transport; so, he proceeded with
his unprecedented conversion. After approximately thirty-five
minutes, Spencer confirmed he was intact and awakened in his new
android body.

Reunion

The date December 10, 2039, the time 10:30 pm
Eastern Standard:

A small urban home in Rhode
Island housed a Catholic family that consisted of a mother, a
father, a fifteen year-old son, an eleven year-old daughter, and a
grandmother. After watching their Saturday night family movie, they
were getting ready for bed. As the grandmother kissed her two
grandchildren goodnight, she headed to her room and fell asleep.
The children were eager to stay up for another few hours in order
to play hologames, but their parents insisted they go to bed.
Tomorrow they planned to get up early, go out for breakfast, and
then to the mall in order to shop for Christmas gifts. The children
were vocal in their disappointments, but listened and went to bed
as instructed. The parents were relieved they finally had some
quiet time together and hoped to take advantage of it, but they
felt the need to sleep and made their way to bed. By 11:37 pm,
everyone in the household was sleeping soundly.

The date December 11,
2039, the time 12:01 am Eastern Standard:

As the household of five
continued in their rested state, all of them fell out of slow wave
sleep and into rapid eye movement sleep at the same time. While
their lids stayed closed, their eyes started darting back and
forth, accompanied by small body twitches. What this family was
experiencing was no different from every other night, except for
the content of their dreams. The downloads had begun. The
information Prime 2 streamed transmitted through numerous
mechanical relay stations in space and would continue for the next
ninety-six hours, in order to make sure everyone on Earth received
this data. The download itself was no more then five minutes per
humanoid, and once completed the receiver awakened
immediately.

The date December 11,
2039, the time 12:06 am Eastern Standard:

The small Rhode Island family
woke simultaneously as they processed the new information and was
shocked of what they had learned. They were without question true
to their faith, but now things had changed, “Life on other
planets,” thought the father who then looked at his wife. The two
parents left their beds and ran to the living room where they found
their two children and the grandmother already sitting down holding
one another. None of them spoke of what they had learned. There was
no need. Everyone knew what the other had discovered and
experienced. There was no need for debate or the need to question
it. Even the most hardcore disbelievers of extraterrestrial life
could not argue that it was not true. It was as if everyone had
just experienced his or her own personal close encounter. As the
parents stood there looking at their frightened children the father
ordered for the holoscreen to turn on, and the first thing they saw
was the emergency broadcast tone with a heading that read, “Please
stand by. What you have experienced was undoubtedly real. The
President of the United States will be addressing the nation at
12:30 am Eastern Standard Time. Meanwhile please stay in your homes
and remain calm.” The father turned and walked towards the couch
where he sat down next to his family and waited.

“
I just don’t get it. Why would they harvest
us like that? Why would they inflict all those diseases on us,
Daddy?” said the little girl.

“
I know how you feel honey, it’s complicated,”
replied the father “Let’s wait and listen to our
President.”

A few minutes had past until the holoscreen’s
standard message faded out and the President of the United States
appeared sitting behind her desk in the Oval Office with her hands
folded neatly in front of her.

“
Dear fellow Americans, I come to
you tonight…”

The date December 11,
2039, the time 12:30 pm Eastern Standard:

Serafina was called from her
quarters and ordered to fly to Washington DC to meet with the
President and certain members of her Cabinet. The Floaters had been
indirectly working with World governments for years. Knowledge of
their home planet was already known to a small group of humanoid
military and political personnel from Earth. What these select
Earthlings did not know was that this planet was harvesting
humanoid consciousnesses in order to maintain their population, or
that the Earth population was controlled with diseases they
implemented.

Serafina was delighted to meet
with the President; this would now give her the opportunity she was
looking for. The new intelligence she gathered about Spencer’s
consciousness hacking servers all over the world and the fact he
had stolen Central Circuit’s only sentient android, would indeed
convince the world powers to give her the rest of the tools she
needed.

Serafina and Commander Calchera
were transported from a neutral meeting place in Delaware directly
to the White House via Marine 1. Upon their arrival, Commander
Calchera started to break out in a cold sweat, dropped to his
knees, and immediately threw up on the White House lawn. As one of
the Secret Service Agents assisted him back up, he looked over at
Serafina and advised her she was going to have to meet the
President alone, and ordered her to continue. Serafina acknowledged
and proceeded without any concern for her sick
commander.

Serafina partook in a thorough
screening process before she entered the White House. Once she was
found to be free of any material or diseases she was instructed to
proceed.

Serafina was directed into the
Oval Office and was informed the President was on her way. As
Serafina sat there she reviewed her planned speech and was ready to
offer the United States Government certain resources, but at a
price.

As the President, the Secretary of State, the
Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff entered the Oval office;
Serafina stood up and introduced herself. The President and her
staff were already familiar with Serafina’s involvement with the
LP, but obviously had no knowledge of her involvement with Melchior
or the Guardians. The President sat down behind her mahogany desk
and everyone else placed themselves on the two striped couches and
chairs that flanked the President. After the formal introduction,
the President cut right to the chase.