Chapter 1 : Subject#18

Han Meng consciousness feeling groggy , and all he can feel is darkness. Yet among all that he can still feel his body "breathing" , but in an unusual type of method where he breaths a type of liquid , and release air outside his body.

Han Meng felt panic, fear , but mostly is curiosity and fascination, because he remembered what the voice just told him.

" Is this what it feels like to be a Cyanobacteria? It feels new and nothing like a human or a normal lifeform, everything feels instinctual. Like what I am doing is the most natural and obvious thing, yet I still don't understand how I can still think like before even though I am just a bacteria."

Han Meng felt everything is very novel and new. Han Meng was just an American-Chinese student in M.I.T specialized in Computer Science. Yet he never always felt that was his most fitting life choice.

He always has interest in science and the world around him as a whole , but if you ask him whether he likes Technology , History , Politics , Math , or Astronomy? He'll just say all of them.

He always has interest in new knowledge, whether useful or not , whether relative to his life or not. He originally chose Computer Science as a specialization because of interest in video games at that time, but he lost interest after studying a couple of years.

Off course this affected his study, but he still was able to continue in M.I.T , which is a testament to his ability. But his grade were still average among his peers because he always is "reading about something interesting" , which didn't bother him much anyway.

He was sleeping in his bedroom after finished reading an article about how Humans evolved so far. And was still thinking how interesting it was even in his dreams. Until he heard a mechanical voice in his head .

"Welcome Subject#18 to Experiment Trial# 9420.

Objective#1: Survive and Evolve along planet earth.

Current Task : Evolve as a Cyanobacteria Mold organism.

Specialty : Unknown

Lifeform: Level 1 Cyanobacteria Mold

Cosmos Level : 0

Current Time: Hadean Eon

Estimated Experiment Time: 10 billion years

"

Han Meng was dumbfounded as he woke up to this sound and feeling the current state of his body.

At first he thought he was dreaming, but the feeling of breathing is making him energized as time passed on, and there was a trace of hunger that is making him even more bewildered.

" Where am I ? who are you ? what subject and experiment are you talking about ??" Han Meng asked feeling faint at heart.

After all the voice sounded too mechanical and androgynous to have the ability to comprehend his question just now.

" My name is Guide. As in your guide during this experiment."

Han Meng was surprised after hearing that it still answered him and thought it was a chance to get to the bottom of things.

"Your name is Guide? What exactly are you? A kind of A.I ? "

Han Meng asked in excitement. He has this feeling that such a sound can't belong to a human being, and felt that it was generated by some kind of computer to fit this artificial intelligence.

But this wasn't what excited him. After all, he came from 2020 , and A.I were kind of common at that time.

But what excited him the most was the fact that it answered his questions fluently, even though he was a little panicked and confused to ask a question in a tone that the average A.I will comprehend. Which means either this was a person having this kind of mechanical voice or some type of voice changer, or an A.I having a pretty good speech recognition.

And his instinct were telling him it was the latter for some reason.

"I am type of lifeform that was created to assist Test subject in overcoming their experiment in limited situations. And you could compare me to the existence of Artificial Intelligence that your species created, even though it's level is pretty low compared to me. But we still match in terms of basic functions, and the most important difference is I have the ability to evolve along with the Subject."

Han Meng was stunned after hearing that, it answered him flawlessly with a structured definition of it's self , which is kind of normal for an A.I. But he was shocked when heard a trace of disdain in it's voice when it mentioned "Artificial Intelligence", which made him doubt that it was someone pranking him by kidnapping him and acting as an "A.I".

But he dismissed the possibility because of the condition of his current body, which is pretty bewildering at first, but it started to make sense to him after remembering he should be a Cyanobacteria "Mold".

Cyanobacteria is a type of bacteria that existed on Earth as early as 4 billion years ago, which according to scientists marked the beginning of the Archaean Eon.

Where a vast amount of microbes was formed in the seas or known to some as primordial "soup". And among those microbes is Cyanobacteria. Which is unique type of bacteria as it was the only type to evolve to produce oxygen from water powered by the sunlight.

Right now , Han Meng is feeling the H2O entering his body and the oxygen and nitrogen leaving it from his what should be called pores, which reminded him of breathing as a human, although a bit different.

This makes him feel strange and curious at the same time. And it also gives a faint believe of what Guide was saying even though it should be unbelievable.

He decided to ask her more thing and get a grasp of his current situation first.

"So who was your creator?"

Han Meng decided to ask this first. After all knowing more about the culprit who scared him would give his leg a nice ass to practice kicking with in the future.

"Unknown."

Han Meng felt his forehead full of blacklines if he had one that is.

"How do you not know who is you creator is? Isn't this unreasonable? Do you not know even what type of people do you serve? And you still call yourself a Guide???"

"It's very normal for me to not know about my creator. After all , in Modern Earth, phones do not tell you the name of the person who assembled them. And as for who I am serving. Currently it is you."

Han Meng was speechless and embarrassed by the reasonable rebuttal.

And decided to ask basic question first

"*cough* *cough* , then do you know at least if he was a human or not?"

" He is not"

Well that was way too simple of an answer! Han Meng was annoyed at the lack of information, but was still excited to hear that it wasn't a human.

Which means there was a possibility of alien lifeform which was able to create such an advanced and glib tongued A.I.

"Then what kind of species is he? And what are there characteristics and current planet and the type of living environment they live at? "

Worthily the Curious Han Meng. He already started firing question as soon as he heard something unknown to him, let alone something about alien lifeform.

"Subject's current Cosmos level is too low to have access to this information"

"Then what level do I have to achieve to get access to this information?"

Han Meng asked curiously.

"Unknown"

Han Meng wasn't surprised this time as he was expecting this. After all , if you initiated a contact with an alien race, hiding your information is a basic thing to do.

But he was surprised that he could get access to the information later.

Then he realised that asking about those question currently is useless anyway, and decided to ask more important question regarding his life and death.

"What kind of experiment is this anyway and what is the objective of it?"

"It is an experiment testing the influence of exterior force on a single lifeform separately in a 3 dimensional universe and how far they can evolve and observing their behaviors."

Han Meng mind was rumbling like heaven and earth just flipped over. A 3 dimensional universe! Exterior force!

Han Meng knows too well what that means, which is basically that the one who did this to him isn't as simple as an alien lifeform on another planet or star system or even another galaxy.

He or she was basically in another universe that have different dimensions possibly 4 or more, and the fact that they were able to observe a universe with other dimension alone is mind boggling, let alone influence it.

To know how hard it is, just imagine you draw a man in 2D on a paper with some landscapes. And imagine this drawing started to have life, and the man started to walk on top of the landscape. And while he was walking, you put a ball or a spherical object or anything 3 dimensional on top of the paper.

Then? Then nothings happen. The 2D man should never be able to feel or observe the Ball. Or even if he might feel anything he shouldn't see or observe what affected him, because he is a type of lifeform that evolved in the 2D universe and it shouldn't have the organs, receptor, recognition , and intelligence senses to comprehend anything in other dimensions universe.

The same can be said about 3D universe and any other higher dimension in theory.

So no one can blame Han Meng for feeling shocked over this information.

"So, is there other lifeforms under the experiment other than me? Are there any humans either? And are there any on Earth?"

Han meng decided not to ask anything currently about the one who made him as a lab rat. Because frankly, with the ability of the other party and their technological means. Han Meng felt he should be honored to be a lab rat at this point, no matter how unwilling he is feeling.

"Yes, there are other Subjects undergoing the experiment at different time interval and under different conditions to each other but have the same objective overall. And whether there were humans or not other than you it's unknown, but there isn't anyone starting at the Milky Way galaxy as a whole."

Han Meng felt relieve with a little bit of loneliness after hearing that.

"So, what should I do now Ms. Guide "

Han Meng decided to ask this first as he was confused about his current situation even if he knows himself turned into a Cyanobacteria, he still doesn't know what should he do next and how to do it with the way he was unfamiliar with his current body. And thought this should be the guide role to point the way for him.

As for calling her a Ms. Guide? He felt it would be less lonely with the guide being a she rather than a he. With the way it sounded, there is no difference anyway.

Sure enough Han Meng was right.

"your current state is made of a mold that was based on one of the first organism in your planet: Cyanobacteria.

It's ability is to transform oxygen from water powered by the sunlight made it thrive on this planet and initiated the first Mass extinction on Earth by filling the planet with oxygen and killing other lifeform that oxygen harms.

Which later made the transformation from H2O to oxygen a basic necessity for plants which is a process known as photosynthesis. But this was all in the start of the Proterozoic Eon which comes right after the end of the Archean Eon.

Currently you are in the Hadean Eon which shouldn't have any lifeform according to Human scientists. But as a part of the trial this current history has been altered in this world."

"wait wait wait !! what do you mean THIS world and current history ?! wasn't I transported in time by you ? is this a simulation ?"

Maybe because Han Meng finally asked a relative question, Guide was firing explanation like the most boring teacher in your local school, contrary to his concise answers to questions about his Makers.

But Han Meng wasn't bothered about that right now.

" Of course it's not a Time travel. Because time travel is more advanced, so it requires a height of Cosmos and lifeform level which is outside the Guide's database."

Replied Guide with a cold sound mechanical sound. Which sounded a lot more colder than usual to Han Meg, but he wasn't sure of it.

" You could think of your previous world as a type of plant. And this plant leaves seeds which will grow into the same plant in an outward appearance, but have genetic differences.

You could call it a type of a parallel world. Which has the same start as in your previous world and probably the same ending, but the events in your world aren't easily changeable as most people would think. For example, if you were to arrive at a time before the event of 9/11/2001 in your modern era. Which was famous for the incident of a terror attack which had terrorists hijacking planes and crashing them into the World Trade Center.

You might think you'll be able to prevent the incident by easily writing an email or warning the authorities or anything of the like, but things aren't that simple.

Your warning might be able to alarm the police about the planes, but in the end the World Trade Center is bound to fall whether by terror attack or a bewildering gas leak etc..

And your interference might cause a bigger backlash which result in more damage."

" Why? Is this something like fate of destiny?" Han Meng asked in confusion. After all that he heard so far. He wouldn't be surprised if he heard it was because of the will of heaven or any such nonsense.

"Because of the cosmos energy. It dictates a lifeform level based on how much cosmos energy it can use, and it also forms the "seed" universe structure like it formed it's "mother" universe. Because of the impact of 9/11 was heavier on the Cosmos energy "sea" and it sunk further than some events in your planet which makes changing the event requires the changer's Cosmos energy to be heavier than the event's weight.

Otherwise, the Cosmos energy instinct to preserve the "mother" world structure in it's "seed" structure will create a back lash that will influence the changer based on the weight of the event too."

Han Meng was shocked. As he never heard of this kind of parallel universe theory before. Han Meng mind was numb as he imagined a Watermelon full of seed and each seed has the same kind of world, and each seed will grow into multiple watermelons and all of them have seeds! It was a stunning image.

Wait! Han Meng then thought about the Cosmos energy. What type of energy that could influence multiple worlds and connect them based on a single world? And how could it form in his image of a watermelon? Could it be the flesh of the fruit itself?

Han Meng was confused for a second. Then he thought about something, and his bacterial body was dancing on the water surface as if it was a worm that was electrocuted, but much smaller.

"Seems like you figured it out. Your experiment might not be 100% hopeless after all." Guide cold voice which seemed a bit taunting echoed in his mind. Which caused it twitch in frustration, but chose to ignore her comment as a dignified gentleman.

"Is it possible that Cosmos energy is the dark matter?" Han Meng asked excitedly.

"It is called that in your world" Guide replied mechanically.

-------------

Hi there great grandpa reader.

This novel will be heading in a Sci-Fi direction in the future. And i will try to mix a lot of scientific facts into the story, but stir these facts in a blend of fiction and fantasy. And my goal is you the reader having to go out there and google a fact that is written here to check if it was true or not, or how far was i from the truth. As for scientific accuracy? thrown out of the window by me long ago. The only gauge of reality in this novel is you as a reader and how to perceive it's reality and fiction together. cool, right ?... cut me some slack ok? it is my virgin novel after all....

Ps. The author thought's option was looking kind of messed up to me so I decided to write this in here