Starchain: Hammer, Alexander

03 MAR 2556 A.D.

Location: SPIRIT OF LONDON, Transit to Infinity, Luna

When I finally came around, a feeling of warmth blanketed me.

“Alex,” a voice echoed. I discovered myself in a daze as I sat up in bed. I rubbed my eyes and realized there were four large screens in front of me. Two of the screens appeared to be displaying my vitals.

“Can you hear me, Alex?” inquired the older man in the room. “I’m Dr. Ian Brock.”

“Where’s Lyla?” I asked.

“You can rest, Alex. Lyla was rescued after your distress call,” explained the Doctor. “You are both very lucky to be alive…no doubt thanks to your efforts.”

A female doctor with short blonde hair stepped up from behind Dr. Brock. I remember she gently put her hand on my shin. “I’m Dr. Watts - I’m in charge of linking and augmentation for Reclaimer. We understand you’re probably very tired right now, but we need to have a quick chat while you’re still lucid.

“You mentioned you were in the water,” Dr. Watts said. “Is that the last thing you remember?”

I hesitated as I struggled to recall where I was last.

Dr. Watts then reiterated her question, “You’ve been out for nearly three weeks. Is the last thing you remember the water?”

Three weeks? I found it hard to believe I had been in bed for three weeks, but then flashes of memory started to crawl into my consciousness: teams of doctors, surgery drones, incredible streaks of light. It felt as if I was in a dream where all the thoughts I’ve ever had or places I’ve seen were molded and mixed into a single sensation. Then it was stillness as I remembered my yoke from Uncle El. My Uncle El had disappeared and likely died years ago, but I had just dreamed he had been alive. It felt so real.

 “No, the last thing I remember was a memory from when I was nine years old. I remember the water, the crash – but I felt like I just relived an event in my past…just moments ago,” I explained trying not to sound crazy.

The doctors in the room all smiled, a few of them quietly celebrated and congratulated each other.

Dr. Brock spoke again, “You felt as if you were reliving a memory?”

“Yes.”

I noticed my name up on the top right display above my heart and blood vitals. It said RECLAIMER next to my name. Strange, I thought.

“Alex, the damage to your brain and body from the accident was severe. You probably didn’t realize it at the time because of adrenaline and the stimulants your tempsuit activated while you were in distress. There was little that could be done to save your life that wouldn’t make you ineligible according to the Reclaimer Program’s restrictions.” My first thought was that this was the end of the line for me. I’d be celebrated for my efforts, then kicked out.

I probably would’ve been much more upset that Dr. Brock was implying I had been removed from the training pipeline had it not been for the total exhaustion sweeping over me.

“With that being said, Mr. Kalis and the directors were fascinated with your efforts over Johnson Atoll and requested a complete de-briefing on your performance in the program thus far. It goes without saying, they were impressed,” Dr. Brock relayed with a half-smile. “You should all be dead. Lyla and Drex are alive because of you.”

“Ahmed, Ken, and Tyler are dead,” I explained. I could hear his screams as I said the latter’s name.

“With the diagnostics and footage from inside the Eagle, you should all be dead,” a deep Texan voice emerged from the back of the room. “In simulated models of the event, you all die 92% of the time.” The iron-like stature of Victor Kalis, the Director of Reclaimer, came forward. It was only the third time I had seen him, but all the candidates knew who he was. Nearly 6’5” with silver-peppered hair, Director Kalis’ physical stature was like something you’d expect a Reclaimer to look like. Not only was he the director of the entire program, but he also reportedly personally funded all provisions for the program’s first six years. Every tempsuit, OBS, food packet, fuel, battery, weapon, printable, and machine needed by the Reclaimers would be paid for by Kalis’ deep pockets.

I stared at him as he approached the bed. I wasn’t awestruck, I had just become too tired to react. I noticed that I had two thin scars along my right forearm.

“You decided to cheat death and save your friends,” Kalis stated. The doctors in the room were smiling. He outstretched his hand toward mine. He was surprisingly gentle as he shook my hand.

“Nice to see you again, sir,” I responded to him. He then told me that I was the type of man he wanted out in the void. Our conversation lasted about three minutes as he asked me about the accident, requested some details about the Eagle’s mid-flight failure. The Director largely just nodded and appeared to be ingesting everything I had said. He then shook my hand and told me regretfully he had to go to another engagement with the Japanese delegation.

“When you’re well and proper, you and I will have another chat. Get some rest, Reclaimer.”

The other doctors and individuals in the room gave a quiet round of applause, but I wanted to tear my ears from my skull. Why was it so loud, I thought? Noticing I was in distress, Dr. Watts approached my bed to comfort me. What did they do to me? She gently motioned for the room to calm down and asked everybody except Dr. Brock to leave. As the last member left, she placed a small metallic cube on the table.

“This will allow me to interface with your new links,” she said. “Your dire situation did not leave us much of a choice. We had every protocol available on Earth to treat you, but we were dealing with a limited window to save your life. The team at CWR was available so we moved in an unexpected direction. You’ve been linked with Chariot-3.”

At the time, I didn’t know anything about Chariot-3. Though, I knew Chicago Wetware & Robotics, more commonly known as CWR, was responsible for linking shock troops of the UAR Space Force. Dr. Watts tapped the metallic cube on the table and a hologram control panel emerged. She adjusted a white dial in the hologram.

As she did that many dormant thoughts became active in my head as the Chariot-3 device stimulated the neurons in my frontal lobe. I began to sense the electricity currents in the walls, I felt interfaced with every device in the room as if my thoughts could speak with them. All this happened simultaneously with absolute clarity. Dr. Watts smiled as she saw my eyes widen.

“Do you feel it?” she asked.

I can’t explain how. But I knew I could do it. I shut it off. The four screens behind Dr. Watts went dark.

A quiet befell the room. “It’s very intuitive, isn’t it? When you’re rested, we will show you to shut down or manipulate much more than that.”

“You mean like the hospital?”

Dr. Watts paused. She looked around and noticed the sound of Medbots and the quiet beeps of vital signs had ceased coming from the hallway. The noise of people shuffling around seemed to echo more clearly. The doctor looked at me with a puzzled look on her face.

“You shut down everything…”

I returned a smile.

“I see you learn fast. That’s good – you’re going to need those skills out there,” she said, pointing out the window.

The Home Systems had rolled back years of cybernetic and neurological integration. Since the Nethymian conflict, the Home Systems attempted to redefine what it meant to be human. Between the 22nd and 23rd centuries, humanity had replaced its flesh with machine and in doing so may have removed man’s inclination for simple virtues like compassion, humility, and kindness and replaced it with cold calculations and precision. Decision-making born from a lifetime of experience was replaced by optimized, custom outcomes made by lifeless computations. Humanity eventually realized the risk of being imperfectly human was a superior way of life.

It has been nearly a year since I woke up from the crash at the atoll. As the rest of the Reclaimer candidates continued their training, I was mainly locked in a room at CWR learning my cybernetic toolbox and testing new OBS craft for the Directorate. Despite all that idle time in Chicago and Reclaimer training centers, Mr. Kalis never followed up about that supposed conversation we were supposed to have. Our paths even crossed a few times at the Texas headquarters. He always seemed to act indifferent to his suggestion that we would have a private conversation after I recovered from the hospital visit. Kalis never said anything – until today. A blue notification emerged in my HUD. It was an invite from Dr. Kalis to meet at the Trench Aquarium.

“We’re approaching,” said Drex leaning into the porthole. “It’s a lot smoother landing when you’re not the pilot, by the way.”

I looked at Drex. A large smile draped across his face. Since the incident last year, Drex and I have kept in touch. He made a quicker recovery than I did so he returned to the hospital several times to visit.

I informed Drex that Dr. Kalis finally reached out.

“What does he want?”

“It doesn’t say,” I replied. “I’m supposed to meet him at the Trench.”

Drex looked up as if he was thinking. “That’s far from here.”

The intercom announced we were approaching Infinity, one of Luna’s largest cities, and the site of the official launch of the Reclaimer voyage.

I sat back in the leather seat and attempted to enjoy the last few moments of calm. Allison Andersen and Piotr Nowak in the seats beside me appeared to be doing the same. Over the next ten years, there will (of course) be moments of tranquility and peace, but I hope those times are few and far between.

We could feel the thrusters on SPIRIT OF LONDON ignite as we closed in on the terminal.