Dadr'Ba (7 page)

As the light faded colors began to appear and from these colors, shapes began to form, the realization that she had a body and that she was lying face down on the floor in the old church, where many of the survivors of the Touch of God gathered and she wondered if there was a God? She felt she was certain that there was somebody, a presence, a will behind the light that guided her back in from the blackness that the pain had taken her to because she was able to remember everything.

She hated the trick that was played on them but was thankful for the experience. She blinked her eyes and the smell of her stomach contents she was laying in filled her senses and another set of spasms radiated up from the pit of her stomach but produced nothing. She struggled to her hands and knees and sat upright, taking in her surroundings.

She was one of the first ones to recover, fear that some of the other initiates were dead or lost in the abyss swept over her, and she crawled from one to another of her grad-mates finding each breathing normally with a strangely composed almost pleasant expression on their faces. She left them untouched to finish their journey with the help of the mysterious Guardian.

Several other grads had awakened and were coming to grips with what had just happened and what the others had and were going through. Each one quietly contemplating what had happened taking in their surroundings.

Everything looked different, as the color, hue and intensity had been increased Su’Zi even became more aware of her peripheral vision and with a sudden realization looked around and saw Ra’Chl and the Ushers had returned and were standing quietly watching with a calm approving expression on the faces.

Su’Zi sensed that they wanted this event to complete naturally, without interruption or modification and she sat quietly soaking in her surroundings contemplating what had happened. Soon, in spite of her surroundings her hunger pains returned and one of the ushers as if on cue went to a table and picked up a biscuit and a small energy drink and offered it to Su’Zi, still sitting on the floor, near where she fell. Su’Zi accepted it gratefully as the usher gave her an approving pat on the shoulder.

It took several hours for everyone to recover, yet Su’Zi was in no hurry, as were the rest of the awakened, the biscuit and energy drink quelled the hunger pains, and a peaceful warmth took its place.

Once everyone was awake, Ra’Chl asked everyone to get up and step down the stairs and to wipe themselves off, using a cleaning towel handed to them by an usher at the bottom of the stairs and to take a seat on the pews. Once sitting in the pews, the Ra’Chl began to speak.

First of all, Ra’Chl, apologized for the deception. Explaining that the original Touch of God didn’t give any warning either. The Touch of God happened just as suddenly, and even more unexpectedly, since the grads, as off guard as they were, knew or anticipated something was going to happen, just not what. And said that they could believe what she was saying because “I was there, during the First Touch of God.” A gasp ran through the gathered grads, that would make Ra’Chl over eight-hundred years old.

Ra’Chl went on to say the First Touch of God was more painful than what they had just experienced and sickening to the brain. And included long-lasting systemic effects, numbness, tingling, tremors, paralysis. It was then that the initiates noticed the trembling of Ra’Chl’s fingers, it wasn’t that she was nervous, it was that she carried a mark or sign from the Touch of God, and it also explained her limp.

“The electronic shock that was used to give you a glimpse of the Touch of God was real and carefully calculated to bring you to the edge of death so that you may know God, and that if God is willing, return you to life.” “Rest assured that though the success rate for this process is high, there are no guarantees. We were lucky this time; Sector Two had no losses. But there was a loss in Sector One and Four. We make no attempt to interfere with God’s choices.” “Had you tried to interfere we would have prevented you.”

“I’m sure you can understand why it’s important that the sacred knowledge that you’ve gained here today must remain a personal secret and never, ever be shared with an un-awakened, penalty for disclosure of the sacred knowledge is severely enforced without exception or hesitation.” And then, as if answering Su’Zi’s mental question Ra’Chl added, “This is a Church secret not a CA secret.”

They were then made to swear an oath of secrecy under the penalty of death, never to reveal the nature of the Touch of God Ceremony they had just experienced.

They were told that God’s will is God’s will, and that there’ve been instances of lost grads. God chooses not to appear, or the initiate cannot find God, and the initiate is lost, never finding their way through the darkness, to die lost in the darkness and never knowing God, retiring without passing a piece of yourself on to your descendants. Su’Zi thought of Ba. The Elder concluded with the reminder “The Church suspects that God refuses to appear to those with advanced knowledge of the ceremony.”

The Awakened were now guided to another section of the Church and allowed to clean and shower, then given a clean, white robe. Their old soiled undergrad clothes were bagged for recycling. All the grads were careful to keep their crew member badge and displayed it proudly on their new, clean, white robes.

Each of them was given an appointment for their bio-mods and taken upstairs to their waiting families. To Su’Zi’s surprise, there was a crowd waiting outside the Church, unlike graduation, where the whole sector attended, there was only the immediate family of the awakened, there was loud applause and occasional cheers as each of the awakened strode out into the broad light of a Dadr’Ba midday. Su’Zi didn’t know how much time had passed, but she guessed that it wasn’t the following day, but more likely the one after that. She walked out to a cheering crowd, and almost immediately was almost knocked over as out of nowhere; she was grabbed and hugged by her mother and brother. Su’Zi chocked up, short of breath as all she could think of was that Ba was missing this.

Su’Zi having already been apprenticing as a carpenter went directly to work the after she got home from the Touch of God Ceremony, she’d have to wait her turn for her bio-mod appointment.

Su’Zi’s primary task in the days before her bio-mods was securing and sealing the tunnel close behind the tunnel boring machine cutter head this work was internal to the T’Bm and in a somewhat controlled environment.

Once Su’Zi has her bio-mods, her duties would include maintaining the high-pressure duct system that carries raw fuel to a staging silo and the elevator up to the fuel processing facility. These tasks meant spending most of her time outside the protection of the T’Bm inspecting and maintaining kilometers of ducts and raw fuel transport systems.

She anxiously awaited her bio-mod appointment. When the day finally arrived, it was the same as with graduation; hers was the very last appointment of all the graduates in sector two.

Su’Zi selected her bio-mods with great care and deliberation. In a society of clones, individuality is highly regarded and sought after, which results in some pretty unique and garish combinations of bio-mods.

Permanent hair is viewed by many as a must. Hair has the practical aspects of insulating and cushioning the critical components of the head. It also offers clones, striving to be individuals, a huge variety of colors, textures, and styles which, along with permanent tattoos and cosmetic facial structural modification can have a dramatic effect, often changing the person’s whole personality.

Given the birthing process is equally divided between genders and the necessity for zero population growth, both prospective parents have an equal incentive for picking the perfect mate, which would ideally mean finding a pairing that complements each other while enhancing their strengths at the same time minimizing their weaknesses.

However, this is rarely the case, the vast majority of couples choose their partners based on love.

Gender role development in Dadr’Ba society is unique. Many children like Su’Zi know very early on what gender they want to be, there’s no explanation for it, they just know. Early gender self-recognition is common, but sometimes it just takes time and children are free to experiment and behave in whichever gender role they choose. Children that don’t resolve their gender identity sometimes run into problems when they near coming-of-age, undergo the Touch of God Ceremony and are awarded their CA sponsored bio-mods.
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The norm is that the graduate upon selecting their body mods and their sex will pick an individual or couple to teach them how to use their new equipment. These mentors will guide the Lr’Lng
[42]
in the ways of sex.

Sex is for many a recreational activity, particularly among the young. Since sex is not involved with birthing, (the whole crew is biologically sterile), there is no risk of unwanted pregnancies and the associated paternity issues. And since DadrBa is a sterile environment, there’s no danger of the spread of disease (although climaxes or resets occur, there is no exchange of body fluid). So sex aboard Dadr’Ba is a physical activity used as a physical, mental and psychological stress relief and is often linked to self-image and esteem and group/pair bonding.

Choosing a partner for a mate and forming a committed relationship, is for grownups, those people that have reached a level of maturity, usually at least fifty, more often a hundred or more years old. The joining ceremony at the Church, registering the union with the CA and moving from the single dorms to the family apartment is a significant milestone in a person’s life.

Mate bonding is a commitment that often involves a level of sexual monogamy at least until the couple has been together long enough to cement their relationship and build a level of trust, and to become perhaps a little bored, often several decades or more. A mated couple is together for a century or more, and the bond of trust, love and commitment goes far beyond the physical.

Su’Zi had chosen for her mentors, Pri’Api
[43]
and Ti’Reso
[44]
a married couple that had been together for over a hundred and fifty years, had birthed two children of their own, had been mentors to dozens, and possessing an outstanding reputation. When Su’Zi asked them to mentor her, they gladly accepted and offered advice on the best sexual bio-mods. In the end, Su’Zi took their recommendations and picked her skin tone, hair color, permanent tattoos, facial features. She had less control of the job-related enhancements, particular ones were mandatory, others optional, allowing her to withstand better the cold, dark, harsh environments, especially in the lower part of Zone Three where current mining operations have progressed to and eventually the “death” zone, zone four.

Su’Zi reported to the Med Clinic at the appointed date and time. Su’Zi would be asleep for the procedure and wake up at Pri’Api and Ti’Reso’s place and get her first lesson on the use of her new equipment. She checked in and was provided a sedative, after which she remembered nothing.

The surgeon, Dr. Pan’Ju, studied the bio-mod order on the screen. Then, with a swipe of his hand panned down to the mentor section “I knew it,” he said to himself, noting the mentors, Pri’Api, and Ti’Reso in the mentor block.

Although not always the same P-T’s (Pri’Api and Ti’Reso) bio-mods are personalized based on the individual yet have a certain flamboyancy to them that Pan has come to recognize.

P-T has performed lots of mentorships and provided many more bio-mod recommendations. This tops them all; it pushes the envelope of their flamboyant standard to the limit. It’s a little over the personal discretion bio-mod budget, but as the surgeon in charge, he has some discretion and knows how to get past the CA’s audits.

P-T must be doing something right, though; Pan hasn’t had a single request paid or not, to reverse or undo any of their recommendations. There have been a few requests after the fact to add more to the bio-mods that P-T has recommended, but Pan suspected that it was due to a reluctance on the individual to go all the way with P-T’s initial recommendations and not the recommendations themselves.

The sexual mods on this one are extensive P-T must be getting feedback from some of their other clients, the cosmetic mods were standard enough, hair, skin tone basic eyeliner a little extra fullness here, no reductions. This one wants to accentuate a shapely figure, much more than the latest trend; this one will be a real looker even spotted from a distance, more of a classic almost retro look.

Nowadays the emphasis is trending to a slimmer, demure look. Pan checked the family status... very near the bottom. No wonder she was the last on the list of the graduation bio-mods. Ordinarily, this bio-mod order would be over the authorizations for someone of her class. The scheduler should have probably not allowed this order to go through, but undoubtedly left that decision to the attending surgeon, which is sometimes the case.

Then he checked her job classification, which ordinarily would’ve been the first thing he checked, but the sex mod had distracted him. She’s going to be a Zone Four Mi’Nr and requires the deep mining package, extreme cold, low light vision, High-G joints, reinforced skeleton and core muscles and, of course, endurance. She’s going to be working down near the outer reaches of zone four, the death zone. She’s going to need all the help she can get; a little extra volume here and there will provide room for the additional strength, energy, and insulation she’ll need to survive.

Before he closed the order narrative and submitted the requisition that would automatically retrieve the parts from the automated warehouse, he noted the scheduler comment. “Thank you” in the comments area.

Pan will make this an extra special mod, this being the last of the grad bio-mods and with no others scheduled; he won’t have to deal with the pressure of other anxiously waiting graduates and their families. Today will be one of those occasions when he will be able to set aside the mechanic, and become the artist, the sculptor of living art and life.

He frequently touches people’s lives, emotionally as well as physically and on rare occasions like today can create living art, he’ll be able to take his time on this one and make it special.

____________________________

Later that day, Pan walked briskly toward his apartment proud of the day’s work he had accomplished. He wondered if he would ever see the work of art he had created that day again.

The e’TaC-M
[46]
(enhanced Tracking and Communications Module) fused to his skull accessed his front door and his flat panel displays activating in all his rooms, his wife Nu’Wa
[47]
, wouldn’t be home for several hours.

They realized, like many other couples that, each needed some quiet time alone, to muse and unwind, and although his job wasn’t necessarily stressful he often felt the need for quiet and to ponder life’s questions, particularly since he faces the realities of their existence so much during each day.

Nu’Wa also faced the realities of life on Dadr’Ba but from a different angle, her job as a retirement coordinator brought her face to face with the grim facts of life aboard Dadr’Ba and she had many appointments in the evenings.

Both Pan and Nu’Wa are active participants, essential even, in the lifecycle of Dadr’Ba. Nu’Wa at the end of life and he, at the first major milestone when a new person finishes Level I programming and is configured to go online and become an active component in this giant machine that is Dadr’Ba.

Maybe it’s because Nu’Wa is female or perhaps it’s just her personality, but Pan thought Nu’Wa seems to be able to handle the realities of their existence better than he. She didn’t appear to need as much alone time as he after a hard day, instead she seemed to, just need, to be close to him, and he needed to be prepared to support her.

Pan sat unwinding in his favorite chair, staring at the large flat panel as O’M approached at three thousand kilometers a second, still about a light year away. Pan mused that there really must be a God. Because it really is a miracle that they are alive and can appreciate the gifts that life can give, and soon, within their lifetime, though still decades away, they will reach O’M.

Pan felt incredibly lucky to be with Nu’Wa. They’re so well matched, with common interests, compatible and complementary in their differences. And both with the same security clearance. Lucky too, that their parents are both healthy and well, though it’ll probably be at least a century, possibly longer before he and Nu’Wa will be able to have children of their own, their children will be born not out here in space but on O’M.

It’s hard to think of themselves as Thinking Machines, but every day Pan opens up and looks inside sometimes three or four people. People as he’s come to know them, people as they’ve come to know themselves.

He single-handedly performs the operations; there’s no need to have a life support system and all the associated equipment and techniques, the machines in his office are ancient and only for show.

He simply puts the brain into standby mode and shuts down the respiration and circulation altogether. There’s no pain, no bleeding it’s not like having to fix a living biological person or a piece of machinery in operation.

He’s alone in the operating room, sometimes he’s the mechanic with a machine and sometimes an artist alone with his canvas, like today. He’s got a large display for reference, but it’s unnecessary. He’s been doing this for over a hundred years, and he’s gotten outstanding at it.

He rubs his chest, the left side containing his heart and the right side containing his brain and memory store, respiration only needed to provide cooling for these internal components. He has as with all the other D’En’s, twice the processing capacity and four times the memory as the most advanced U’Te or Mi’Nr in existence, but does capacity equal intelligence? Who’s more intelligent? The D’En, who only uses ten percent of their capacity or the Mi’Nr that uses half of their processing capacity? Pan can think of many people that fit that situation, shouldn’t that make them equal?

Pan felt proud of today’s job, the last of the graduation season. He spent the whole day making sure everything was perfect, even tuning up the systems that were not part of the work order. This girl, he thought is going to have a tough life, he’d do what he could to make it a little bit easier.

Nu’Wa would be glad to hear that the parts she recovers are being put to good use, being made to last, most are barely worn when they come into Nu’Wa’s custody.

Regardless of the component’s source, D’En, U’Te or Mi’Nr each person gets dismantled and each component gets refurbished and thoroughly checked out then warehoused. Pan has never rejected a part for not meeting standards but occasionally will requisition another if he’s not comfortable with it for any reason. A good example would be like today one of the muscle modules installed passed the one hundred N (Newton) standard for that group, but knows they’re capable of a hundred fifty N sometimes two hundred N, since components need to be balanced. He made sure that this system as a whole was balanced, capable of operating at a hundred fifty percent of officially rated capacity.

Nu’Wa may question him on his multiple returns to stock today, but after he explains, Pan is confident that she’d agree he did the right thing. It’s not as if they need any bonus credits for exceeding parts’ conservation standards; they have everything a couple could want, credits in the bank a level four apartment, robotic maid service, flat panel’s in every room, full premium channel access and well-filled spice, tea and liquor cabinets.

Now the grad season is over. Maybe they should go on a vacation Pan will ask Nu’Wa when she gets home.