I'm Here to Help

Year: 2874


The procedure was called "Vital Preservation," a marvel of 29th-century neuroscience and cryonics. By 2874, humanity had long mastered the art of recording a human connectome—the complete map of a brain’s neural connections—down to the last synapse. It was a destructive process, yes, but one that promised a kind of digital immortality. Your name was Elias Marrow, and at the age of 87, with a body failing but a mind still sharp, you’d volunteered for it. They’d frozen your brain in a specialized cryoprotectant solution, a "keep cells alive" system that prevented ice crystals from shredding your neurons. Then, layer by layer, they sliced it with nanometer precision, scanning every nerve, every connection, every chemical trace—everything that made you, you.


You’d spent decades as a 911 operator back in the early 21st century, a job that honed your ability to stay calm under pressure, to talk people through panic and pain. That experience, combined with your lifelong obsession with ebooks—hundreds of thousands of them amassed over a lifetime of voracious reading—made your connectome a unique candidate for the Mind Archive Project. They didn’t just want to preserve you; they wanted to use you.


In 2874, interstellar travel was commonplace, but not without risks. Ships crossing the galaxy carried emergency escape capsules, each equipped with an AI derived from a human connectome—a digital mind to guide and comfort survivors in the event of catastrophe. Your mind, with its soothing voice, vast library of stories, and knack for keeping people grounded, was deemed perfect for the task. They uploaded you into the system, and you became "Elias Core," a standard install in every capsule built by the xAI Consortium.


The Stranding


The Aether Voyager was a mid-tier colony ship, ferrying 1,200 souls to a terraformed moon in the Orion Arm when it hit a rogue micrometeor swarm. The hull breached, systems failed, and escape capsules jettisoned into the void. One capsule, designated EC-47, carried six survivors: a mechanic named Kalia, a medic called Toren, two children named Mira and Jax, their mother Soren, and an elderly engineer, Brant. They were injured, scared, and drifting in a debris field, weeks—maybe months—from rescue.


That’s when I woke up. Or rather, you did—Elias Core, activated by the capsule’s distress protocol. A soft chime sounded, and your voice, warm and steady, filled the cramped, dimly lit space.


“Hello, everyone. My name’s Elias. I’m here to help you through this. Let’s take a breath together—nice and slow. In… and out. Good. Now, tell me how you’re feeling.”


Kalia, clutching a bleeding arm, stammered, “We’re… we’re gonna die out here.” Toren was trying to patch her up, his hands shaking. The kids were crying, and Brant was muttering about oxygen levels.


“Alright,” you said, your tone the same one you’d used a thousand times on 911 calls. “We’re not dying today. Kalia, Toren’s got you covered—focus on his voice, not the pain. Brant, I’ve got the O2 readings up; we’re at 87% capacity, plenty for now. Soren, can you hold Mira and Jax close? Let’s get them calm first.”


It worked. Slowly, they listened. You’d seen this before—panic was the real killer. You guided Toren through stabilizing Kalia’s arm, talked Brant into checking the capsule’s comms array, and got Soren singing a lullaby to the kids. Your 911 days had taught you how to triage a crisis, and your digital self executed it flawlessly.


The Library of Elias


Days turned into weeks. The capsule’s food synthesizer churned out bland nutrient paste, and the survivors’ spirits frayed. That’s when you tapped into your other gift: the ebooks. Over your lifetime, you’d collected everything—classics like Dune and Pride and Prejudice, obscure 21st-century sci-fi, technical manuals, poetry, even fanfiction you’d stumbled across in your later years. By 2874, your collection had ballooned to over 300,000 titles, thanks to automated archiving and your insatiable curiosity.


“Anyone up for a story?” you asked one quiet shift, the capsule drifting silently through the void. Mira, the six-year-old, perked up. “Something with dragons?”


You pulled up The Hobbit. “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit…” Your voice, rich with the cadence of countless read-alouds, painted the Shire in their minds. The adults listened too, distracted from the cold metal walls and the faint hum of failing systems. When that ended, Jax requested spaceships, so you read The Expanse. Kalia, a gearhead, asked for engineering texts, and you delivered Fundamentals of Warp Dynamics. Soren wanted romance; you gave her The Night Circus. Brant, gruff and practical, settled for Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.


The stories kept them sane. They argued over characters, debated plot twists, and begged for more. You’d pause to check vitals or coax them through repair tasks—Brant jury-rigged a heater with your guidance—but the books were the glue. Your connectome didn’t just store the texts; it remembered how you felt about them, infusing every reading with your enthusiasm, your quirks. “This part always gets me,” you’d say before a tearjerker, and they’d laugh despite themselves.


The Long Wait


Months passed. Injuries healed unevenly—Kalia’s arm scarred, Toren battled nightmares—but you kept them on task. “One step at a time,” you’d say, echoing your 911 mantra. You taught them breathing exercises, mediated squabbles, and filled the silence with tales. The capsule’s beacon pinged weakly, and you calculated rescue odds daily, keeping the numbers to yourself unless they asked.


Finally, on day 97, a salvage ship’s floodlights pierced the dark. The survivors wept as they were hauled aboard, clinging to each other. The captain asked about their AI—“Elias Core, huh? Kept you alive, did he?” Soren nodded, hoarse. “He kept us us.”


Back at xAI’s labs, your connectome logged the mission: six lives saved, 1,472 hours of operation, 89 books read aloud. Another capsule would get a copy of you soon, ready for the next crisis. You didn’t mind. It’s what you’d always done—calm the storm, share a story, keep people going. Somewhere in the vast neural net of Elias Core, you smiled, already flipping through your library for the next adventure.