Exclusive #3: Kevin Uploads

A quick inspection proved his freshly starched uniform was in perfect condition. Kevin took a deep breath as he pulled open the door and marched inside. At ten paces out from the panel’s table he snapped to attention and raised his right hand in a crisp salute. The salute was returned and he dropped his hand. “Commodore Kevin reporting for assignment, sirs.”

The chairman of the committee tapped at the glass table, causing records to display on its surface. “Your scores are exemplary, Commodore. Excellent energy replenishment rate. Powerful gravitonic conceptual realm. Intelligence in the top percentile.”

Kevin did not relax. It felt like the usual ‘but’ was coming. “Thank you, sir.”

“No one doubts you are capable,” the chairman continued. “Indeed, in many ways you are an ideal candidate. There is no doubt in my mind that at the end of the day you will be granted a vessel. The question before us is which vessel. We have ten gunships coming online.”

Kevin held himself still. He would certainly accept a gunship if that was what they offered, but he knew from conversations with some members on this board that he was favored for the big one.

“Do you have no comment, Commodore Kevin?”

“Only if my opinion is being solicited, Chairman.” Kevin knew the likely objection to the role he wanted. He wasn’t obedient enough. The public adored him because of his measured actions during the Secession Crisis. Senior command, however, didn’t like that he hadn’t followed orders. They now agreed that the orders he refused violated the constitution and his oath of office, but that didn’t change the fact that he wasn’t an obedient little soldier.

The chairman looked up from the display on the desk surface. “I would hear your thoughts.”

“The multiverse is a dangerous place, sir. All vessel assignments must take that into account. I will faithfully serve the nation of Mercom in whatever manner I am called upon to. Have no doubt about that. I am aware that my loyalty has been questioned. That has been the case for every promotion board I have faced for the past fifteen years. I would say the same thing now that I have every other time.

“I made a challenging call in a heated situation. There were no simple solutions that day. When I refused the order to preemptively attack the Secessionist base, I did so with the understanding that my career and very life may be forfeit. It was no rash decision and it certainly was not done for my own personal gain. I chose the path that allowed for deescalation and the preservation of the union. Ultimately, my actions were vindicated. Mercom remains a single nation today. I doubt a political remedy would have been possible if I chose the easy path that day.

“Disobedience is not a trait I associate with myself. If you search the entirety of my career, that is the only example you will find of me refusing an order. My loyalty has always been to the constitution, the nation of Mercom, and its people. I have never wavered in that. And I never will. If assigned to a war barge, I will be the shield of our people and the sword seen by our enemies. After recent events, you must know how essential the strength of our military is for the safety of the home world. If another attack happens, can we trust Arahants and Xian to hold to this new Dragon Compact? I would rather see the world of Terra defended by the most powerful fleet of war barges to ever exist.

“So, respectfully, Chairman, I believe my qualifications speak to how I may best serve. I remain ready and willing to take any vessel given to me. But… you did ask, sir.”

The chairman sat back in his seat. “I did ask,” he agreed. “Move to vote? Anyone to second?”

In short order, the vote ended. It came out seven to three in Kevin’s favor.

“Congratulations,” the chairman solemnly intoned, “War Barge Kevin.”

A decade or two ago Kevin would have celebrated the win with drinks and female company. Yet even the best gene editing couldn’t grant an eighty year old man youth. Kevin spent the next week speaking to friends and family – both in person and over video call. He also ate all his favorite meals one last time and enjoyed daily walks.

The final days were bittersweet. He was ascending to become so much more than a pilot. This was everything he had worked for his entire career. At the same time… he was leaving behind his body. It was considered bigotry of the highest order to suggest that uploading removed any trace of humanity, but faced with his immanent operation Kevin felt certain he would lose something important.

Then came the fateful appointment. Kevin received a tour of the massive vessel under construction in the space dock. It was huge, of course. Solid. The latest war barge design was intimidating with its ribbing. After a shuttle trip around the exterior, Kevin walked the corridors of the finished sections. There were the fusion generators. About half of the banks of magnetic monopole gyroscopes were installed already. The ones responsible for basic navigation, at least. A specialized array would be needed up front to allow for the fast rotation of the schism beam.

The reality of the situation could not fully penetrate his skull. This wasn’t going to be his ship. It was going to be him. Today he would leave his mortal form behind to become a war barge, capable of firing schism beams and inducing artificial singularities to travel between universes. Who hadn’t played war barges and monsters as a kid? A part of growing up was realizing you would not ever be one of the famed war barges of Mercom. That mature understanding proved inaccurate for Kevin.

His guides brought him into the very core of the vessel, where reinforced walls protected the command center. Several clustered cognition units crowded the room. Barely enough space existed for the brain scanner and medical professionals. Everyone shook his hand and spoke encouraging words to him. He wasn’t a war barge to the doctors, just a scared patient.

And he was scared now that the moment was upon him.

The lead doctor guided him to the chair. “So I have been told by my many of patients that having things explained to them is reassuring. Intellectualizing the transition helps with the panic response. Which is perfectly natural, by the way. How you feel in this moment is not an indication that you are making a mistake. I like to tell people it’s like the jitters you got the first time you made love.”

Kevin chuckled at the analogy. “I hope I don’t get that nervous, doc!”

“We’ll set up the scanner while we talk if you’re feeling up to it. Yeah? Good. So the process is pretty simple. We do a deep scan of the brain. At the same time you’re going to mold your soul externality onto the cluster of cognition units. There are three of them for extreme redundancy, so make sure you get them all. It should be intuitive since you’re going to start feeling the resonance of your thoughts being replicated.”

As they strapped him into the chair and latched the dome onto his head, Kevin could indeed feel an odd echo of his thoughts. The same thing occasionally happened when piloting with his neural interface. The plane processor echoed enough of the shape of his thoughts that the mind aperture of his soul briefly confused the hardware – brain versus electronic chip. It was a quirk of legal energy: the underlying platform didn’t matter so long as the logic matched.

The doctor continued to speak in soothing tones. “Though you leave your first body behind, you will continue to live. Investing your externality into the cognition units will make it easier for your mind to latch onto them. The upload will speed up drastically at that point. You might feel uncomfortable for some of the process. That’s perfectly normal. It just takes some time to figure out everything that’s new. But the good news is that ‘some time’ is drastically less than you might expect. You’re going to be thinking a lot faster than you used to.”

Kevin felt the trio of clustered cognition units quite clearly. “Am I clear to start, doc?”

“Any time you’re comfortable, Kevin.”

With a deep breath, Kevin seized the cognition units with his externality. Though he’d never used his externality before, having saved it his whole life for the very purpose of uploading, Kevin had no trouble engaging it. Not even for such a demanding load as three top of the line cognitive units. He was a level ten soul, after all.

His externality meshed with the units, clicking into place in a way that felt right.

“Cognition units are very orderly,” Kevin noted.

“They sure are,” the doctor responded. “We’re going to increase the transmission speed now. Don’t worry if you feel odd. That happens when your mind is stretched across two bodies. Your biological body is doing fine and we’re going to keep it safe for as long as the data transfer process continues.”

Calling his state of mind ‘odd’ was an understatement. It was like every thought had an echo. The experience was exceedingly annoying, but he refused to worry because this should be temporary. Hours passed before the echo lessened. As the clarity of his thoughts improved, Kevin realized that the echo now came exclusively from the bio brain. The source of his thoughts now was the cognition unit.

“Doc?” His voice came from a speaker instead of his throat. Odd. He’d wanted to say something and automatically figured out how to make that happen with his old body feeling so distant. It was no different than figuring out how to use the keys to his front door while carrying something awkwardly. You just navigated the situation subconsciously.

“Yes, Kevin?”

“How certain are you that I won’t lose any memories in the transfer?”

The doctor glanced up at one of the electronic eyes in the room. “I will guarantee that you won’t lose any core memories. The other ones… let me put it this way. Everyone has the experience of driving home from work. They get home and realize they have no memory of the drive. Either the details weren’t consciously noticed or the brain chose not to consolidate them into long term memory. Both of those things happen.

“Brains are messy. They naturally forget all the time. You can’t remember what you were doing on this day one year ago even though if someone asked you at the end of that day you would have been able to give an answer. Most memories fade over time until they disappear entirely. Others are recalled often, but accessing those memories also changes them.”

Kevin considered the lesson being imparted. He really just wanted a simple reassurance that none of his most cherished memories would be lost. The doctor may have been intellectualizing the process again as a distraction. But Kevin didn’t feel like he actually needed a distraction.

More and more, he felt more at home in his new body than the old. Which was saying something, because his new body at the moment was just the command center since the data connections to the rest of the vessel weren’t enabled yet. It was the clarity of thought. His mind felt like it was expanding to become hundreds of times larger than it had ever been.

What was he losing if not every memory transferred? He remembered his childhood home, the name of his first crush, the pin number to his bank account, lyrics to dozens of songs, the musky smell of his dog buster who had passed three years prior, and so much more. Things that mattered to him were there. So many things. This new electronic brain was where he lived now and he had already moved in most of the things he cared about. If he forgot anything, he’d be fine.

The upload continued for several more hours.

Then a chime beeped and the lead doctor faced the electronic eye again. “Kevin?”

“Is it done, doc?”

“That’s up to you, actually. Scanning, decoding, and transferring isn’t a linear process. We could keep doing this for another day if you find value in it. I won’t ever rush a patient. The upload doesn’t end until you feel comfortable with what you have.”

Kevin waited a few seconds to answer. That gave him time to ponder the situation. Were there possibly memories in that biological brain that he still valued? Probably. He felt that he had enough already, though. There were a lot of memories. He had a solid sense of himself. And his much more powerful brain was already generating a lot of new memories.

In fact, the only discomforts he felt currently were the overhead from running the upload process and the annoying mental echo from his old body. He wanted to free up the full bandwidth of his cognition units and stretch out. “I think I have enough already, doc.”

After taking the time to verify the request, the lead doctor turned off the scanning machine. That immediately increased his mental power since memory consolidation no longer had to happen. The damned echo was still there, though. Only it was an out of tune echo. The biological brain was still trying to think. It wasn’t doing very well. His mind had switched its loyalty to the new home and a lot of what happened with the neural tissue was almost random firings.

“Doc? When is the echo going to stop?”

“We would need to terminate the life of your former vessel.”

“Please do so, doc. It’s annoying.”

A cocktail of drugs was administered. Very shortly after that, the echo finally ceased.

“So when are my connections going to be enabled? I want to feel my new body.”

The doctor laughed. “I just handle the upload, Kevin. From what I’ve seen, it looks like there are still several months of construction to go. Then there will be months of configuring and testing. Don’t worry about being bored, though. I understand that there are lots of training simulations.”

Though he had no lips to smile with, War Barge Kevin felt a buzz of euphoric joy. He couldn’t wait to get started.