Eclipse Phase, Long Night: Log 01 - Wake Up

[Arhra]

Life is pain.

The mechanisms of resleeving have allowed prophets of this fallen era to brandish this idea as a profound truth.

When you are resleeved, it is necessary to test whether the noetic imprint has been correctly written onto the brain. This is done through direct stimulation of the nervous system. In other words, you are tortured. Pain is the signal that allows you to know that you are alive.

Your voluntary muscle control is disabled, so that you cannot injure yourself, and your short term memory is disrupted, so that the version of yourself that awakens at the end of the procedure is disconnected from this experience. Even so, echoes of it are left bouncing around in your hindbrain.

To those who seek profoundity in this, the parallels are obvious. When you die, you wait in limbo for a time, and then you are judged. Whether from chance or entropy or malice, you might cease to exist. And if not, you are sent to purgatory before you can rejoin this unsatisfactory afterlife.

Oblivion or damnation. And, in the end, oblivion.

It is an unsatisfying religion.

You might choose to curl your new lips in contempt and throw back the simple rejoinder that it is better to be alive than to not be alive.

Whatever the case, for now you are alive.

* * *

The room was white and sterile. Its lighting was designed to have a warm rather than cool light to offset this, but it was not entirely successful.

The medical bay was approximately kidney shaped and somewhat lumpy. It had been retrofit into this section of Cerberus Station. A frame and a false ceiling had been set up, the necessary cable runs put in and the white panels installed. They were self cleaning modular units automatically networking to provide ventilation, temperature control and mesh access, easily interchanged with more specialised panels for heavy duty power amd plumbing. More low-tech solutions filled the gaps where this grid had been impossible to adhere to.

Five trays in a morgue-like nook had been opened and their former inhabitants, clad only in hospital gowns, deposited seemingly randomly on five of the twelve beds taking up most of the floorspace in the room. Two still had their heads resting in the maw of ego bridges.

A pale, plump woman was fussing nervously over the readouts on one of the bridges, hand to her mouth, white teeth chewing on the fleshy part of her forefinger. Her hands were raw looking, the nails chewed down to the quick. "All five neural writes successful." she said, hurrying over to a console. "Resuscitating now."

"Thank you Dr Chambers." the room replied.

It was the sort of soothing, confident, unhurried voice that had been lovely crafted in a lab by a crack team of linguists, psychologists and acoustic engineers to convey calm competency.

It was the voice of BaSIL, the Base Support Infrastruture Link, the artificial intelligence that monitored the unclassified section of Cerberus Station. Waking up here meant something had gone terribly wrong.

"Good morning to you all." BaSIL continued, as the five other people newly occupying the room began to stir. "Please take a moment to reorientate yourselves - your memories may not have fully integrated yet. The current time and date is 9:07am 16th March 17AF."

"I regret to inform you that twenty-eight minutes ago, a serious security incident occurred. The normal security response has not been effective. Under these circumstances, I am authorised to recruit an emergency response team. You have been selected for this duty due to confirmation that recovery of more recent ego backups is impossible. You have been upgraded to security clearance WHITE NOVEMBER for the duration of the crisis. Those of you who do not normally possess this clearance may be required to undergo memory redaction to protect sensitive project data after the present situation is resolved."

"Your revival was contingent on acceptance of these terms. A sworn affadavit recording your decision is available and the experience logs of your temporary infomorph instantiation can be migrated into your present instantiation should you desire. Due to the risk of mental degradation from rapid changes of neuroform, it was not possible to preserve continuity."

"Before I continue with the security briefing, do you have any questions?"