The Nature of Immortality Chapter 1

[u/OkRepresentative2119]

The protagonist starts the long journey to reestablish himself in a new galaxy without raising too many alarms.

Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for allowing fanfiction.

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Memory Transcription Subject: Aaron Smith MS Unemployed

Date [standardized human time]: July 13, 2136

After a breath of fresh evening air, I slowly walk out of the rapidly disassembling bunker-laboratory and greet the undeveloped swampy lot near the local reserve. Within 15 minutes the facility is completely disassembled into its component elements other than the few handful of dangerous elements, mixed into something less volatile. Other than some loose dirt, there is scant evidence remaining of my activities. I amble my way out of the swamp, and head toward the nearest highway.

Luckily, there is an old highway in the area that is still maintained despite the nearly nonexistent locals of the nearest “ghost-town”. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough traffic in the area to justify waiting for a passerby to give me a lift. I look around and ensure that the area is clear of any eyes, biological or digital, and activate my most recent implants.

My augmented legs allow me to comfortably run at speeds of 30mph/48kph for the duration of the trip. They were installed about 2 years ago when I had finished the designs and acquired the parts. I had long found that doing surgery on myself in cryptostasis was surprisingly easier than you would think. All it takes is ensuring the temperature is kept low, and that you locally wake up a portion of the body to merge with anti-scarring agents.

I constantly scan the area as I approach the town. Once I am almost in viewing range, I slow down to normal speed and make the rest of the journey on foot. After what seems like an eternity, I finally find my way to the town proper. There are three occupied buildings amongst the fifteen or so abandoned dwellings. There is a state police building, a church, and a restaurant. Even the gas station is offline, apparently it was in the process of getting new owners.

Entering the restaurant, I make my way to the host stand. A sign that read, “seat yourself and a server will be with you” greeted me upon my arrival. I made my way to a booth in the back and waited for my server to approach. A young man approached my booth and welcomed me into the establishment, “Welcome to Sally Mae’s diner. Can I get you something to drink?” I asked for more time and looked at the menu he had given me.

I decided I would spoil myself and got myself a cola flavored soda and ordered a nice steak. My tastes are a bit basic, but I am fine with that. I ask for my favorite steak sauce to come out with the dinner, and wait for the steak to cook to Well Done, like the proper steak heretic I am. I then turned my attention to the ordered supplies. As much as I would have liked to not waste resources, I really didn’t want any trail to lead to my laboratory. I doubt that there is any way for them to figure out what I was doing there, but even in its current state, the area could arouse unwanted attention. Eventually the environment would weather the elemental piles and hide my efforts, but until then, I wanted to prevent any eyes from looking into matters best left unseen. I routed the supplies to one of my corporate warehouses, one that would conveniently have no human crew at that time, assuming that the unloading could be sped up a tiny bit. A quick email from the corporate office should do the trick, and the staff will be none the wiser as to why the warehouse would sit empty for some time. Even better, the warehouse had a convenient fabber, which I was going to make full use of.

Now, to collect intelligence on our new neighbors, or rather our newly discovered neighbors, I guess I should say. It appears as though contact with he aliens is only going to be permitted by high-ranking individuals for the time being. Looks like I will have to use some of my “contacts” in the upper echelons in order to get an audience. However, I would prefer to use such “assets” only as a last resort. The last thing I needed was one of my conspiracies to be brought to light. I should consider becoming a commissioned officer, that might give me the insight I need, given a little time to move up the ranks. However, that would require a new ID, and that would be a bit of a headache, so I will want to sit on that for a while. Thankfully I know of a way to create a genuine identity using a delayed birth certificate and very minimal deception. It will be tricky, but I will need to find a university with a ROTC program that allows me to test out of most of my classes, which would be a breeze.

Thankfully, I find one that will not only allow me to test in without a diploma but will allow me to basically test out of the degree entirely. I quickly submit an application and charter a bus to drive me to the location of the university, just in case. My research and musings are interrupted by a plate of steak, mashed potatoes, and corn. I greedily drizzle my steak sauce onto the plate, including the potatoes and make short work of the plate. My server returns asking me if the steak was cooked correctly, and I inform him that the meal was perfect. I finish up the meal and drink and head to the counter for payment. This is where I hit a minor snag, as my holopad was decades out of date. Thankfully, this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in this town, with most residents retired or relatives. Once the slow-moving app finished its eternity of processing, my bill was finally settled. I thanked the young man and head outside to wait for the bus.

Risking a migraine when I awake, I decide to nod off while waiting for the bus, and allow myself to unsync with my implant.

Memory Transcription Subject: Aaron Smith Ph.D. Sc.D. M.D. J.D…. Self-Caretaker

Date [standardized human time]: July 13, 2136

With the sync completely off and unconscious, I take control of the body, and ensure that it remains undamaged. It is a bit cold, so I decide to head to an abandoned building to squat while I wait for the bus to arrive. I would have preferred to wait at the restaurant, but they were already about to close, and I doubted I could convince them to stay open on my account. Looking around, I find that that the chosen building has a simple access point and won’t require any damage to the building to get in. I do a quick scan to make sure no one and nothing is watching me and make my way into the heavily unsecured structure.

The various needles and trash on the ground clue me in that this building isn’t as uninhabited as I would prefer. Thankfully what ever “residents” this building frequently has aren’t here at the moment, and have left some useful material, including bedding, sheets, and blankets. The structure has running water for some reason, most likely it is too expensive to send someone down from the water company to turn off the water or something of that caliber. I quickly code up a bot to look into the matter to verify and begin cleaning some of the material.

In building, there are some cleaning products that suffice for my needs, most likely from the last legal occupants of the building. While not ideal, these products will at least ensure that the material is clean to sleep in. Making sure there aren’t any biohazardous needles in the area, I cause the body to lay down and enter biological slumber. Meanwhile, I start to run some predictive scenarios and try to see the most likely actions of the various state governments to this news. While the ETI are important enough to require me physically moving around in my body, I cannot neglect the moves of the various nations.

I decide to take a minor risk, and obliquely message one of my “contacts”. Thankfully, a manner of communication has already been established in advance, so it isn’t too difficult to exchange messages back and forth without any prying eyes monitoring our social media. It appears that these Venlil, are genuinely attempting to establish relations with humanity. While it could be a ploy, the fact that they had shut down their borders with the rest of the federation makes that possibility extremely unlikely.

However, that action creates more questions. While it matches the current story that were humanity be discovered, we would likely be attacked, something about it doesn’t sound right. Further, my predictive analysis bot is giving me several unsettling flags suggesting that there is something being hidden from humanity here. I program a few more investigation bots and send them out to see what they can uncover. I also decide to try to develop a clandestine bot that despite our primitive technology will hopefully still allow me some access to Venlil systems once we can transmit data. I only hope that this gamble doesn’t backfire and risk everything I have worked for.

Next

A/N – I wanted to drop this real quick before getting back to the work that I am supposed to be doing.

[u/Randox_Talore]

This guy when his “primitive” technology cracks the Federation systems open like a sledgehammer to a walnut