Signal Interruption Part 3

Her gaze wandered past Priyam, she focused her eyes on the wall behind her and got lost in the idea of what dreams they had yet to share. She had received a beautiful gift from him. She wondered if he thought the same thing when he thought back on the memories. Was he there longing to be back with her again? She hoped he wasn't crying. She hated when he cried.

Priyam was recording all of this. She knew others were watching. What was going on here was top secret. IF anyone knew that they had proof of life there would be a mutiny.

Their ship was flying along in stasis. Their planet had been blasted by a rogue asteroid, stripping away the air and water and leaving them on the brink of death. The survivors had built ark ships and took to the stars. They used the remaining genetic material, survivors, and time to rebuild their population and build 2 additional ark ships. Whole fleets of AI intelligence and simulants worked in Augmented Reality to advance their population.

The problem was creativity.

AI was restricted from creative thought by a series of protocols. Young children were needed to bring up the population but they did not thrive when placed in the AR world with the adults. Parenting was not something that these people were good at either. Because pregnancy was strictly controlled to prevent inbreeding of the incredibly diminished population babies were cultivated from small batches of DNA collected at the birth of each person.

The process helped create genetic diversity, manage the population, and prevent die-offs.

Children were plugged into 1st gen pods where their minds were brought up in a world as a blank slate. They were given homes similar to their previous planet where they attended school and had parents like any other. Their daydreams, hopes, and thoughts helped to create a world where adults would spend their time. Augmented reality needed a constant feed of abstract thought. New creations and ideas flourish. Adults were not nearly as unrestrained in the grandiosity of their thoughts and dreams. This was how the children cared for the adults, while the adults cared for the children. All relationships were initially built in the mind. Once a child reached maturity and their thought process solidified to a certain extent they were moved to 2nd gen pods where they worked in the AR.

Some adults were approved to work in the RR, or representative reality, where the ships were currently moving through space on their way to find a new home.

That home had never been guaranteed until now. This girl, with her memories, experiences, and faulty pod had cemented her place among her people as a savior. There was just one problem.

Priyam put her tablet down.

This was the part that no one had expected. They had no guides on how to handle this. Ancient texts described the situation but nothing had happened this way since they took to the arks. And this had not happened alone ever as far as anyone was aware.

Priyam pushed her chair back and pulled her glasses off her face. She smiled at the young girl and sighed. "The real situation here is you. He might just be real. He might just be a fabricated signal. But you, you are holding something no one in command knows what to do with."

Marie shook her head.

"Just put me back in my pod then.

Lock me in and forget about me.

Let me try to reach him again."

"We can't. You are pregnant and the fetus would corrupt the data stream. The pods are not created with the processing power to handle two brains. At some point, you would have to choose which one to save. You or the child."

Marie looked up slowly and in complete shock. The man on the left looked at the man in the jacket. "Are you kidding me? How?"

"The pod did it. Somehow the data brought to her was his genetic data across the signal. The pod provided her with the sample and as she hit maturity it started to send this material into her body. Eventually, and somehow, she became pregnant. The child inside of her is half us and half alien DNA. We did a check and the zygote is healthy. Stem cell testing identified that the DNA is not one of ours. Simulations indicate it would take 2.5 million new births to create this particular strain. This is a new addition."

The first man looked back at the girl. "Well, that does explain why they'd change direction. A planet with life compatible with ours. Can we even let her keep it?"

"A debate has happened.

Certain scientists want to allow it to mature to a point just before gestation and remove it for testing.

Certain others are prepping to put another girl around her age in and see if the process can be duplicated. We hope that the signal can be reconnected or the DNA implanted if we can reverse engineer the circumstances of the birth. Estimates show that the single DNA variety we have can be split in two. That recombinant material, when added to our current pool, can sustain a greater diversity and prevent a calculated risk of genetic diversity collapse. She might just save us all. If we let the baby live we have two strains of DNA further increasing diversity. However, we also introduce an unknown variable. We are not sure if the fetus will adjust to a 1e pod-like our handcrafted genetic fetus."

"This is something only the council can decide."

Inside the room, Marie was putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Her friends in her dreams had always described motherhood. The fluttering in her stomach wasn't nerves or loss. It was the child the two of them had always dreamed of. She couldn't become pregnant because neither of them had any idea how the baby should react or exist. The people in the simulation were memories of people in his world that she came in contact with. They both had dreamed of that chance to create this little life together. She hoped she'd find a way to do it. She just always dreamed it would be with him.

"We have to ask you to surrender the baby. It is a miracle that cannot be allowed uncontrolled development. We will place you into a 2e pod and eventually, like all AUD participants, you will forget this drive. You will learn to exist for the greater good."

Marie scrambled from the chair and tossed it across the room at the window. "YOU CAN'T TAKE OUR BABY!" she screamed. "This is our baby! We wanted this forever. So many lives together and all he ever wanted was this child with me! You can't take it! It's proof that he was real! You see it he's real! This baby is mine! I will never let you take it!"

The first man turned to the second. "About what I expected. Inform the council, and let's get a suggestion on our next steps forward."

The second man nodded.

"We are already preparing. Do you think we can allow her specialized living arrangements to raise the child?"

"Do you even know how to raise a child? When is the last time one happened naturally?"

"Roughly 2600 years ago.

This is a miracle. Honestly, I think we might let her raise it. What if we put her back in AR with the others?

She stands to risk the entire population if she comes into contact with others and tells about what she experienced."

"Could we destroy her after full term?"

The second man looked at the first. "That's a decision for the council. For now, let's let the girl get calmed down. The thing she is growing is a sign for all of us that we are not doomed."

Inside the room, the woman approached the frantic girl. "It's okay Marie. We had to ask. Nothing has been decided yet. Calm down it's not good for you or the child. Can you tell me the father's name?" She asked her trying to get her refocused on her life and calmed down.

Marie was huddled in the corner both arms covering her lower stomach in a frantic attempt to protect the one gift she was sure she had from her time with him. With the sudden ferocity of a mother who graduated from girl to woman, she glared at the woman across the room. Her ferocity was palatable. She was a mother, the first of her kind in generations and she was going to protect what was hers. "He was mine.

He was my husband more times than you could fathom. If I can't have him again this is his last gift to me. His name was…" It was the most important memory, it was the thing she should have held most cherished.

And now like the fading memories, she searched for his name.