I Am Aqueous

I Am Aqueous - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“You’re not Sol are you?” I asked Gun inside our minds.
“How’d you figure?” he replied to me inside our subconscious realm.
I explained, “First of all you acted like a completely different person when Dr. Ried was talking to you. Your shape and voice was different. As well, I know you’re a lot more violent and talkative than Sol could ever be.”
“True, but he did say that the whole AI solute process is very inaccurate, I could just be faulty.”
I added, “And through my own guesses I can tell that you must have been made before Sol and that you have your own agenda and personality, way different from what Dr. Ried wants.”
Gun grumbled.
I concluded, “You are far more advanced. You’re hiding too much in front of Dr. Ried. Come on Gun, come clean. Tell me the truth; I have you pinned down, so there’s no getting out of this.”
Gun sighed. His image in my head shook its head and dropped to its knees. Gun explained, “You got me. I’m not Sol at all.”
“Then who are you?”
“I was a separate project in the Soul division. One of the apprentice scientists wanted to make his own AI and command it for his own agenda using the prototype liquid. He managed to secretly construct the solute, hiding all information.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked curiously.
“When he finished the construction, he created the actual powder, me. He managed to obtain a few liters of some of the testing liquid and dissolved me inside. I was alive then. He taught me everything about the life of humans and his plans, but never his name. He would canister fractions of myself in tubes and place them in populated areas, so I could learn about what I was to destroy. He carried tubes of me around wherever he went too, letting me see the roads and how to drive and learn his slightly Russian accent. At the end of the day, with the excuse that he was doing overtime, he would collect my pieces and reform them and he would hide me in a larger canister. Then he would return early the next day and set me up to learn new things.”
It all became clear now. Why he seemed to know how to use the body so well and how he knew human life so well. I asked him, “So what happened next?”
Gun continued his story, “Well, once the new prototype liquid was developed and ready for the Sol AI to be dissolved in it, my creator was granted the opportunity to help make the merging occur. However, he made a crafty switch with the Sol AI and a dud, a useless solute that wouldn’t work, a few hours before the final phase began. The scientists injected the phony AI into the liquid, but nothing happened. Everyone left and decided to work on the AI a little longer in hopes of resolving the problem.”
“Then what?”
“My creator, again being crafty as he was, he made the excuse of working late again, but this time he snuck into the lab and injected the correct AI, me. The whole process only took a few minutes and I was fully bonded with our body. I broke free of the glass tube and walked my fist steps and modified the preset shape the liquid was sculpted into. My creator stood up and ordered me to bow down before him.”
“So what did you do? How long did you work for him?”
“He was the first person I killed. I saw him with true light only for a few seconds and then I killed him.”
I shouted, “Why?”
He explained, “Like you said, I have my own agenda.”
I asked, “What is it.”
He explained, “Like I’ll tell you.”
I understood. Gun wasn’t the most sociable guy in the world, so I gave him credit for that. I would have to ask him later. For the time being, I asked him to continue his story.
He shrugged, “I might as well; there’s no secrets in that part.” He continued. “The scientists came back the next day to see me standing around in the lab. I had hidden the body of my creator in the blender and flushed his pink goo down the sink. The scientists assumed that the failure wasn’t actually a failure, but a success and that the merging process must take a few hours to take affect, which wasn’t actually the case. So I acted all loyal and friendly and did everything they asked, even killed people when they ordered, so I could earn their trusts for the time being. Then I would break it and escape.
“But before I was actually assigned on any sort of major task for the newly made president, Dr. Ried, since Mr. Rutherford died, the CIA learned of our black project. The CIA gave them a week to get rid of me, but instead they created a self-defense over-ride system, you. They added a very exact acid and base solution into the liquid along with you, so I ever left the conditioned air of science labs or military bases, the slight change of acidity in the polluted atmosphere of cities would activate you and deactivate me.
“They told me this beforehand and I didn’t think it would have been an obstacle, so I didn’t resist, but apparently it was. The military finally arrived and confiscated me. Once I was in the air and easily broke free of their poorly designed canister. I killed every single person on that plane, I think, and I jumped. The cargo plane crashed into the ground outside the city and I crashed onto that elevated highway. Then you took over.”
I asked a curious question, “Dr. Ried said that that shift in time was when the real world was activating and anything before that in my memory was prewritten information. How were you able to help me those few times if it wasn’t real?”
He explained, “Yes, I was able to alter your preset memories before the real world activated for you, it was a very complicated process that I find difficult to explain.”
I pleaded, “Can you try? Give me an idea of what happened.”
He confessed, “I really don’t know. I only know that a bit of my powder was able to break off and bond with yours; miraculously not damaging any of our AIs, but imprinting thoughts of mine into yours.”
I finished, “And those thoughts came to me in the form of a mysterious instinct performing the tasks for me and I gradually caught on and learn how to do it myself. Even though I was in real-time, when you helped me, they came in the same form.”
“Yes. Though I don’t know why.”
I asked another question, “Did you ever get to meet the president of the whole project, this Mr. Rutherford?”
Gun answered directly, “No. He was dead before I came into existence.”
I wanted to learn a little about Mr. Rutherford’s motives so I asked Gun, “Do you know anything about him? Did Dr. Ried tell you anything?”
Gun explained, “Not really. Dr. Ried only revealed that he was happy that the president was gone. He was a traitor to his boss.”
I exclaimed, “Dr. Ried killed him?”
Gun explained, “It was a rumor the scientists were circulating, when I was still in small test tubes scattered around the facility. They said that Dr. Ried wanted the project for himself and to get all the credit."
“What did Mr. Rutherford want with the project?”
“I don’t know, but from what I gathered he was just a rich businessman with all the money funding the project. So thinking like a true capitalist, he held 100% of the shares, so he could make a lot of money if he could sell the results to the military.”
“He was in it for the money?”
“I guess. He was titled mister, so I don’t think he had any military or scientific background.”
I comforted Gun, “Well if these ‘covert’ missions go as planned, perhaps I’ll find the whole reason Mr. Rutherford started this project and how he died.”
Gun muttered, “Well, good luck.”
I thought about something else and I had to share it with Gun, “I think I’ve figured some things out.”
Gun asked, “About what?”
I explained, “About Inspector Roger Charles.”
“What about him?”
“He knew my real name didn’t he?”
“Yes. What do you think?”
“I think that he was the one who designed me.”
Gun shouted, “Are you… Where did you get that from?”
I tried to convince Gun, “Just think about it. How else could he know my name? Why was he always inspecting me instead of other crimes? How did he gain the power to command the SWAT after me? He must be a spy!”
Gun was having trouble figuring it out, but he knew deep down inside, somehow, he knew I was right. He explained, “Yes, but I don’t know how to explain why I think you’re right, but it just makes sense.”
I thought that was then end of the conversation, but Gun added another suspicion, “What about that other person?”
I immediately knew whom he was talking about and I became filled with mixed emotions at the thought of her. I sighed, “Rachael.”
Inside our minds, Gun snapped his fingers and pointed at me, “That’s the one. Boy, was I thankful to get rid of her.”
I almost burst in tears at the negative comment towards her. I yelled at Gun, “Why? Why do you talk that way about her? She is the nicest, kindest and most wonderful person in the world. I know I didn’t have a real Mom, so she’ll do! Rachael is like my family, no one can give you more love than a mother can.”
Gun pleaded, “Oh shut up! That’s why I can’t stand her; you’re obsessed!”
I retorted, “There’s nothing wrong with loving someone.”
Gun joked, “If you love her so much, why don’t you go have sex with her?”
I shrieked! I didn’t know all the details about sex, but I knew from my pre-recorded mother, that sex is something Moms and Dads do when they love each other. I knew that wasn’t right at all for Rachael and I to have sex, so I took it as a big insult. I yelled back at him, “I don’t want to hear another word!”
Gun tried to change the subject, “I only wanted to mention that she was suspicious.”
I ignored Gun.
I brought myself back into consciousness and remembered that we were in the helicopter on our way to the first facility. We had been flying for a few hours. The helicopter was small and it only had three passengers, Dr. Ried being the pilot, Gun and myself. I had learned that we left from somewhere in the Yukon and that we’re heading for some mountains along the coast of South America, more specifically, in Chile.
After a few more hours, Dr. Ried began talking to me. He said, “Well I think I’ve given you enough time. How was Sol? Did you talk to it?”
I answered, “Yes, but he really didn’t have too much to say. I told it about my family.”
Dr. Ried shouted, “That was a waste.” But he calmed down quickly and explained to me, “Before I can tell you anything, you must first let me put two things into your liquid.” I let him. He injected a small syringe of clear liquid into me and handed me what looked to be a coin. He explained, “That small piece of plastic I gave you is a micro radio. If you hold it inside you then you can communicate with anyone who knows the radio frequency, but that will only be me. It is a two-way system, meaning I can talk to you and you can talk to me. One special feature that took me the whole few days to make before we left was that you don’t have to speak for me to hear you. It acts a lot like how you can control one’s speech through their brain. I can give you advanced details about what to look for once your inside.”
I asked, “What was the liquid you injected into me?”
He explained, “I thought this time, the safety measures will be reversed. I put a little basic solution into you.”
I questioned the terminology, “Basic? As in plain?”
He corrected me, “Basic, as in a base solution. Meaning you are in full control until I can add the correct amount of acid to let Sol resume control.”
I gasped, “You mean G… Sol’s gone until you put more stuff in me?”
He nodded, “Yes. Sol is slightly acidic, and you basic, so if I add the specific base that can dissolve into your liquid then your liquid will be basic, thus, you remain in control.”
I was very happy about this. Although I would miss talking to Gun, but I was overjoyed that the violence coming from him will stop. I could feel Gun still moving and able to speak to me, but he was chained down and could never hope to resume control. I was finally free of a thorn in my side. Although free of his violence, I couldn’t help but feel that all Dr. Ried did was put a cork in an active volcano. Something was going to have to die either the cork or the volcano.
I placed the micro radio inside my liquid and let it float around; occasionally I fiddled with it and made it do tracks as if were an airplane inside me. Dr. Ried and I did a few little “test, test, check one, two” speeches. All seemed to work well and it was rather fun, despite the fact that I was talking to my enemy.
After a few more hours, we finally landed on a broken up helipad at the base of a tall mountain. It was a bright afternoon, but the mountain was deserted, as if the people thought there was a curse on it and never wanted to touch it, so it was an ideal hiding place. There were trees in front of the mountain, a lot of trees. I had never seen a thicker forest. There were birds I had never seen before fly above me. It was as if people had finally learned not to destroy wildlife and had let a small forest spread like a helpful virus. I could feel the dampness in the air and I could see the heat. There were hundreds of insects flying around, but they couldn’t bother me.
I stepped outside and felt the unfamiliar shape of the grass slosh around in my toes. Then I felt my back ripple very harshly and I saw heat move behind me. The helicopter was taking off. I meant to jump after it, but I guess Dr. Ried put it in full throttle, because it was long gone after I jumped for it. I saw it disappear into the distance, fading into the grey of the horizon.
I decided to forget about it for the time being. He wouldn’t leave me to kill me, not after all the stakes, he’s explained, his plan is against. As well, if he wanted to kill me, he could just activate that radio frequency and kill me with that. I figured he some sort of separate objective somewhere else or he used the fact I can’t get back “home” as collateral. The thoughts only lasted for a second, so I moved on.
Before I continued, Gun roared in my head like a caged beast, “How dare that Ried bastard lock me up in here! Doesn’t he realize what he has done?”
I answered, trying to calm him down, “He’s left me in control. He doesn’t want to take chances.”
Gun roared again, “He’s let the error take control! How ironic, how idiotic! The being, whose life’s purpose was to restrain me with ignorance, is now doing my job with the same restraints and ignorance! Why this is suicide on his part and suicide on ours! He’s doomed me and everything I stand for by killing me.”
I explained, “To an extent, that’s the whole point.”
Gun warned, “He has no idea the mistake he’s made.”
I told Gun, before I continued, to be quiet.
I turned towards the entrance of the facility, which was a door with fake rocky textures built on it, so it would camouflage with the mountain around it. I found that that attempt to disguise the door was useless with a helipad, covered in mountain grass and dirt, right beside it. The door was made of two pieces that should slide open, so there was a crack along the center. I decided to squeeze through that in order to get inside.
I had to make myself rather thin in order to fit myself through the door, but I eventually made it to the other side. I heard a small metal plop, but disregarded it as nothing. The inside of the facility was very dark and humid. The ceiling was very high and both the walls and the ceiling were made from the mountain rock. The floor was grated and suspended a few meters above the floor, hanging on metal wires from the ceiling. I peered closer at the floor and noticed strange designs of strange coloured rock. The rock patterns were branched, as if they were of cracking glass or of a tree’s root system. I saw heat rising from these cracks, but I soon moved on. My liquid concentration skills had increased a lot since the last time I walked on a grated floor, so I walk along it with little difficulty, but I still slipped through the cracks a little and drooped slightly. I could hear the echoes of my feet on the floor, which was near impossible for an animal to hear. The hallway didn’t branch at all; it led to one main lobby, where the rooms would divide. But before I entered the main room, I noticed a human heat source, so I melted and reformed a meter to my left where there was a wall to press my back against. I waited.
I heard the shuffling of papers and the typing on of destroyed keyboards. After a little of this, I heard pencil scratching and some typing on a miniature computer, then the noise would return to rustling through the papers and desks. I swung an antenna around the wall to take a look and thankfully noticed the person was facing the opposite way. I put my antenna back and waited for any sort of cue to take action; I was supposed to be invisible and non-lethal.
I wondered who it was. I figured it was a spy or mercenary or perhaps one of the rival scientists collecting data on his or her own. From what I saw from that quick infrared glance, the person was small and had no weaponry. I also seemed to be an older person, because it produced less heat. I didn’t want to act yet, maybe when it left. But for now, I wanted to sit tight, until it was 110% safe to move on.
Then I heard the voice. The voice rang bells. The feeling I got from the voice was like an old man who took out his 30 year old records and listens to the familiar beats with dusty cracks. The voice was a memory, a haunting an addiction flying straight into my heart and clenching my soul. The voice was a sweet drug and I was the addict.
I acted without thinking of the consequences. I turned around the corner and I stood straight and tall, and looked the figure straight in the line where the eyes would be, if she turned around. I screamed with joy and with a great pain lifted off my chest. I shouted, “Rachael!”
I had almost startled her to the point of a heart attack and she yelped almost loud enough to ripple my liquid. But after she caught her breath and calmed her heart, she then began holding back herself from fainting. After about a minute, she was calm enough to turn her head and look at me.
Her face was wrinkling and she had gained a little weight. Her hair was thinner and messier. She didn’t wear elegant secretary suits, but she wore a windbreaker and hiking pants. Her eyes and smile were the same. Her eyes glistened and rippled like a gentle breeze over a lake. A drop of warm water fell from her eye and slowly tickled down her cheek and then fell to the ground off her chin. More tears followed and her arms spread like only a mother’s could.
I would have melted for tears, if I were sad. But I was crying with happiness for the first time. Instead my entire body rippled like someone’s chin and mouth would if they were trying to hold back tears of joy. I couldn’t take the suspense, so I ran to her with arms wide open. I stretched my arms and hugged her first. She quickly put her arms around me too. She squeezed me so hard that her arms were slipping through my back and I squeezed her so hard that I might have drown her in the liquid that was my back. I eventually fell into pieces, like someone squeezing a lump of mud and all the mud got pushed through the cracks and fell to the floor.
I reformed my pieces and hugged her again. Then, I broke apart and reformed a second time. I couldn’t contain myself, I spoke again, “Rachael, is that really you?”
Her voice, now not as soft and gentle, but still as angel-like as ever comforted me and calmed me down. “Yes it is me.” She said.
“I thought I’d never see you again.” I whined, “I thought I lost you forever.”
She stroked my antenna and said, “Same here, I never would have thought that you could escape.”
I bragged to her, “It wasn’t easy, but let me tell you what happened.” I then told her everything that had been going on. I told her about escaping, Gun, Dr. Ried, my whole purpose in life, my mission that Dr. Ried gave me and how I’ve missed her. After I was finished, I asked Rachael what she had been doing.
She sighed and explained to me, “I already knew about a lot of the things you talked about, Ozzy.”
I gave her a puzzled look and I only had vague assumptions about what she was going to say. I asked, “What do you mean?”
She confessed with tears starting to pour from her eyes, “I lied to you Ozzy. I used you and tricked you and caused you to be captured.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am a spy Ozzy. I’m a spy and a fellow scientist of the Sol project.”
I gasped and I said nothing as she explained.
She started her story, “Ozzy, my real name isn’t Rachael, it’s Michelle Bandar. My father used to call me Rachael; it was my nickname, but he died when I was around 13 years old. When he died I had nothing. My mother had died when I was very young and I had no known relatives, so I lived on the streets selling sculptures that I made; I am an artist. I managed to get a job and eventually accepted in a chemistry course at a university when I was 20.
“In my last year there, in 2003, I was picked for a rather strange position. Two rather mysterious companies, Body and Soul, practically dragged me off with money to work on their projects. I was given little information about the whole goal of the project, but after I learned about what I had to do, I was optimistic. I was immediately promoted to Project Body’s lead developer. I was, of course with the help of others, supposed to continue the development of a very unique liquid and once successful in the required properties, I was to sculpt a default appearance and shape it for the “Mind” that would soon occupy it.”
I began a trail of thought, “So you actually…”
She finished for me, “Created you. Yes. As well, I chemically designed your molecular structure of the liquid you are living in right now.” She ran her hands across me, as if she was sculpting me. She added, “I sculpted this standard form Ozzy. I received all the liquid and I patted and molded and smoothed out the shape you are in right now, so you could alter the molecules, but are the most ‘comfortable’ in that position.”
I commented, “So that’s why I actually have to strain my brain in order to take another shape.”
She finished, “And the more altered you get, the more you have to concentrate on keeping that shape.”
I was convinced now; she was my mother. Someone else made my mind, but someone I loved dearly made my body. Like a mother would sculpt a body for a mind to live in, Rachael did that for me. I wanted to thank her for all the help she had given me and I wanted to thank her on such a great job of a body she gave me. It was my childhood dreams come true this body. I wasn’t sure about the life and it’s problems, but once I was free, I would be the happiest mind in the greatest body.
I didn’t need to talk in metaphors anymore. I let go of my imbedded, false memories and started to cry my happy tears, by rippling my liquid. I gave her a big hug and sobbed, “Mommy.”
Although a little surprised, Rachael knew exactly why I did it. She didn’t fight me off or feel uncomfortable at all. She held me in a mother’s embrace, letting her warm hand’s, rejuvenating heat flow into my back. Then as I pressed my head deeper onto her shoulder, she stroked my antennae and I stroked her back with my tail. We stood there for a long time. I wanted to tell her so many things, but she seemed like she already knew and each pet made a bad thing go away.
She tried to be serious and asked me, still hugging and stroking my backside, “But I said that it was my fault you were captured. Aren’t you mad?”
I let go of her and wiped a tear from her eye with my tail and told her, “No you didn’t. You made me, that’s all.”
She shook her head, “That’s true, but I was a spy at first. I told the other spy where you were and he was able to take action.”
I asked, “Who was the other spy?”
She didn’t seem to hear me and she continued, “I wrote research papers on your status in the canisters, when you were captured. I sent the papers to Dr. Ried so he didn’t give up hope looking for you. I left, because the military was suspicious. I couldn’t stay, I had to leave for both our sakes.” She broke another tear and I wiped it up for her. She finished, “If I didn’t volunteer to be a spy, none of this would have happened. This Gun wouldn’t have killed anybody, you would have four versions of the same 20 years of captivity. You wouldn’t be working for that evil Dr. Ried!”
I comforted her, “I don’t mind. It’s over. I’m just happy I’m with you and that we can get through this together.” I wiped another tear and stroked her back with five appendages. I asked, “Now who is that other spy?”
She sobbed a few more tears and answered, “You might have guessed already. He wasn’t very good at hiding things. If I’m your mother, then he’s definitely your father. He’s the one who wrote your memory and your identity. The lead developer of the Soul Division of Project Sol, Dr. Roger Charles.”
I shrieked, “No! Not him!”
“I figured that would be your response.”
“He’s evil. Why does he hate me if he created me!”
Rachael explained why, “Because Roger is almost a psychopathic perfectionist. He obsesses over his work being perfect.”
I didn’t understand something. So I asked Rachael, “If he’s a perfectionist, why did he make my AI? Dr. Ried said the process was ridiculously inaccurate.”
Rachael agreed, but added, “True, but the reason is that Roger is very stubborn and wants everything to be exactly as he imagines. So when the scientists were doing their job, on the few day schedule that they had to make you, they were doing an excellent job. You were to be a very stupid being that barley remembered the process of breathing, let alone the whole process of reforming themselves from a puddle and killing people.
“But Dr. Charles was artistic and the slightest bit sadistic. He scrapped all the other AI powders and created his own, one where the person would always sick and suffering, have a family, hopes and dreams, only for them to get shattered by becoming the project itself and wander into a wilderness of endless confusion and suffering.”
Before I broke out in rage I asked, “How do you know this?”
She sighed, “He told me this over and over again, whenever I told him about your position when we were spying on you for Dr. Ried.”
I completely flipped. I managed to repress the thoughts of my only purpose and my identity to only be a useless being that couldn’t do anything. But the fact that Charles deliberately created my mind to have thoughts and feelings, only for them to feeling pain and suffering, as well as making me useless, was just unbearable! I wanted to kill him. I didn’t restrain myself like earlier and think about what kind of monster I would become, if I killed someone. I full heartedly wanted to see my own toes sharpened like Gun’s and repeatedly stomp on his face, until his mind looked like a powder to be dissolved in liquid too! Then I would drag his body around where ever I went by my tail, until every cell had been scrapped off and there was nothing left. I hissed, “I want to kill him.”
Rachael backed away and stood up straight. She warned me, “I feel for you, but let’s not do anything too rash.”
Like a mother telling an obedient son to stop behaving badly, I stopped shaking my fist and giving a blank, evil stare towards the ground. My thoughts were parallel to the glare I was giving, but I stood up straight and shook off the anger. I apologized, “I’m sorry Rachael. I just get mad sometimes.”
She accepted my apology and then warned me not to become like Gun.
I asked her, “So what were you here for? Are you looking for information to continue Project Sol too?”
She shook her head, “No. I’m doing the opposite. I’m collecting data and destroying it, so your gift cannot be misused. If they’re going to create life, then they shouldn’t create life only to destroy it!”
I agreed, “As great as my life could be. If used wrong who know what they can do. Imagine an army of Guns!”
Rachael was thinking along the same lines and proposed an idea. She asked, in a very low whisper, “Can Dr. Ried hear us? Did he plant some sort of micro radio on you?”
I nodded and searched myself. But after a while of feeling and looking, I found that it wasn’t there! I told her, “He did give me one, but I must have dropped it somewhere. That means he doesn’t even know what’s going on at all inside here!”
She smiled, “Well that helps out my plan a lot! For now I can’t do anything, but I’m pretty sure of the path of science facilities Dr. Ried will choose.” She spoke loud and clear as she explained her plan, “I want you to remain loyal and unsuspicious. Do exactly as he says, but in actual truth, I will give you false forgeries to give to him, while we actually destroy Project Sol for good in the background! We’ll make sure you’re the only one.”
I asked, “How and where will I meet you?”
She explained, “I know for a fact he’ll send you to the Body headquarters in London, England. I’ll meet you there.”
“What will you do until then?”
“I will work out a cure for that third solute. The one that if he activates, you will die.”
“Then I’ll be able to run away?” I asked.
She shook her head, “No. You’ll need to keep loyal until we know for sure that we’ve destroyed any bit of research and data. Right when he needs you most, betray him. You’re a double agent. Do exactly as we say.”
I understood. “Well, is there any information that I need to give Dr. Ried from here?”
Rachael shook her head. She lit some papers on fire with some matches and explained, “There was nothing here, but employment management and government bribery proposals here. Right?”
I nodded.
She said, “There’s nothing here. Find that radio and tell Dr. Ried to pick you up. I’ll stay here for a while and destroy some things.”
I agreed and gave her one last hug good-bye and I was off. The radio was at the front entrance; it must have slipped out of me when I squeezed through. I put it inside me and called for the doctor. He arrived in a few hours time. My quest to rid the world of my own blight was gone. And my four walls had become crystal clear, but I was still trapped inside them. I could see through them; but I had to break them.