(POV The Old Man)
The notification appeared in the middle of my screen while I was still reviewing the results of the second phase.
I didn't need to open the report to understand that something had happened.
It had been a few minutes and no one had called me yet.
That was a bad sign.
I opened the report.
SUJET: ASMARA
MEMORY ANOMALY DETECTED.
NON-CONFORMITY NEURAL ACTIVITY.
I stood in front of the screen for a few seconds.
Then he straightened my old bones
– So you finally started coming back.
I parked my chair on the east side and took my cane.
The room I worked in was very different from the modern laboratories on the upper floors. Here, the walls had been built long before most of the current facilities. Some of the machines still operated with systems that the younger researchers no longer even knew how to repair.
I have more confidence in the instrument that has served me throughout this adventure.
My steps have become as slow as my computer, which is younger than this photograph.
It was almost completely bleached.
Two silhouettes could still be distinguished.
We're almost there.
I could get back that seductive face you hate so much,
I even became intelligent, you weren't wrong, it took me more than a decade.
Fortunately
I had a long life, you were unlucky, changing bodies until you no longer remembered which one had been your first.
I remembered everything.
And old age was the price I had paid.
I kept our memories, as you wished. Each era had accumulated in my mind until it became almost unbearable. The wars, the discoveries, the first experiments on memory, the first genetic modifications, the older generations of subjects… and I would come to see each of your new bodies even if you didn't recognize me.
It was precisely for this reason that I could not accept dying.
I also wanted to understand how far humanity could go.
And if anyone were to reach the next stage, it would be me.
ALPHA-1 INTEGRATION: 70%
ASMARA MEMORIAL ACTIVITY: PROGRESSING
I frowned slightly.
– it gets mixed up
I'm enlarging the data.
It wasn't simply resistance.
The emotions of this sigma are very intense,
They did offer him another host, but the alphas are too proud and stubborn.
Asmara was not surviving the erasure.
It was different.
A human memory could be destroyed. A consciousness could be fragmented. Even the most deeply ingrained memories could be altered when one possessed sufficient control over the brain.
But here, the process seemed to be reversed.
The deeper Alpha-1 became embedded in Asmara's neural network, the more coherent her memories became.
As if the two consciousnesses were reasoning with each other.
I leaned against my cane.
– You're not supposed to be able to do that.
I took the elevator down to the deep archives.
The doors opened after several seconds.
The air was colder there.
The corridors were almost deserted.
Scientists no longer came here.
Everything that had been deemed unnecessary by previous generations had been preserved in these levels.
I walked to a door with no sign.
I placed my hand on the player.
An old system recognized my fingerprint.
The door opened.
Inside there was only one table.
An old terminal rested on it.
I turned it on.
A black interface appears.
ORIGINAL ARCHIVES
ACCESS: ALLOWED
I selected the Sigma folders.
I don't think they're capable of that kind of thing.
ANOMALY: Damaged file: SUBJECTS CONCERNED: SIGMA-5
I stopped smiling.
The problem was much more serious.
What a boring alpha
I slowly closed the terminal.
– So we're going to wake up the others