Doctor Who_ Hope - Mark Clapham [45]
He vaguely recollected an afternoon as a new recruit, a smile in a crowd. As he thinks of that day now his enhanced memory plucks out that moment, and he can see not just the smile, but her red hair; the silky whiteness of her dress. He can focus in on follicles in her hair and the pores in her skin.
What is he, a creature of pure data, downloaded from poor Humbertos shattered skull into a hard drive somewhere? Is be a file on someones wristtop, a transmission bobbing around the Earth?
No, there is physical awareness, muscles and bone and skin. And something else, a dead weight. The security programs push him away from these areas but he dodges them, his aptitude for programming enhanced now that he is part computer himself, the edges of his person blurring into information space. The security programs were there to keep him unconscious, partially, but there are others command codes to keep him in check, instructions to follow orders with compacted files of names and faces to be ever obeyed. There are killswitches built into him, he realises.
Enough of that. He does not know what has happened to him, but he knows he wants freedom, at least the freedom to wake when he chooses, if nothing else. Besides, these security programs are crude things, primitive attempts to program the advanced technology of his mind. Whatever that may be. So he gets rid of them, composing countermeasures in his head like brief arias, which flit around the crude command programs, dismantling them with the poetry of blades, a concerto for ones and zeroes. The doors fly open, and with a sudden awareness of breath he can wake up.
The world around him sweeps in at the same time as an awareness of self while his countermeasures continue their work, feeding back into the datanet monitoring him to find out more about his situation. As be opens his eyes one human and weak, the other a precise visual feed with numerous options for enhancement, scanning and tracking he is simultaneously overlaying his own medical records on to a headsup display. Humberto don Silvestre, experimental operation, alien technology. He turns to examine his new arm at the same time as he reads about it, and instantly overlays that information on to the arms controls, feeling the capacity to crush steel, to extend the barrel of a gun from your own body. He feels the power of the wetware liquid storage system flowing through his own brain a substance the scientists could barely comprehend, but of which be himself has mastery.
He releases himself from a web of cables, floating precisely in the zero gravity, the physical calculations for every move preempting any human clumsiness. The medical monitoring equipment is rigged to inform the doctors when he shows signs of life, but it was easy enough to hack through the datanet and turn those failsafes off. He looks out of the window, into the stars, only his link to the datanet still attached, a cable plugged into the side of his skull. Otherwise, he is free, all command protocols disarmed, no restraints to hold him back.
He watches the stars, remembering his human life with complete digital recall, contrasting who he was then to who he is now. He knows he is not the same man. He brings up Humberto don Silvestres medical records once more, this time allowing the military computers to detect his invasion of their systems, to note his presence. Before disconnecting be makes one alteration, deleting most of his former name, editing his surname until only one word remains. He reaches to the back of his head with his new metal hand, gently disconnecting the cable. It is done, be has been reborn, renamed.
He is Silver.
Searching for Silvers origins,