ODA, Callum, riley, Maiara and carlton discuss the 13th memory they all received prior to coming onto the Ark
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“So, your first injection was like mine, a soldier, however it wasn’t Captain Amis?” I said to Carlton.
“No, mine was a Scottish soldier,” Carlton said.
“Rank?” I asked.
“Captain,” he replied.
“Mine was a Japanese Colonel,” Oda said, sitting back in his chair and resting his hands behind his head, as if he had just moved a Rook onto a key square and called checkmate.
“Well mine was a Brigadier General,” Maiara said, and Oda slumped.
We then all looked at Riley, the Irish representative. She wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, as she was trying to pile a piece of every type of food from her tray onto one fork, so she could taste the entire meal in one go.
She paused with her mouth open, and the fork hovering in mid-air when she noticed all of us looking at her.
“What?” she said “I just wanted to taste everything at once.”
“We don’t care about that, we’re just talking about who was our first memory injection.”
“Oh yes I heard, mine was a soldier, a sergeant,” she said. Then she tried to put her fork into her mouth, but the carefully stacked mountain toppled back onto her tray. She sighed and started to pile it up again.
“Well then I out rank you all,” Maiara said.
“At least mine was a non-com, you know, the soldiers who have to do the hard work the officers tell him to do,” Riley commented with a smug smile.
“The next few memories though were mostly languages, I think they were all the same?” I asked changing the subject.
“Yes we all learned English, Spanish and Chinese from the three same people,” Carlton said.
“Including Prince George,” I said putting my hand on my heart, “God Bless the royal family.”
“We also had the same memory man?” Oda said.
“That means that the language contributors all had to have 250 injections of nanites to record the memories, then 250 extractions,” Carlton said.
“So did the memory man,” Oda said.
“I think half of all our memories were like that, one person getting 500 hundred odd medical procedures to provide 250 teenagers with their skill sets. The other half were all tailored to our specific nations, which was probably easier to do,” Maiara concluded.
We all sat back to think about that. Nanite memories were copies of the skills and knowledge of very learned people. The nanites would be injected, they would copy specific brain cells then be extracted. I couldn’t imagine doing that 250 times to provide us all with the skills we would need on this journey. There had been 17 of them in all.
“What about the 13th?” I asked.
“Callum,” Maiara chided me.
“Come on it was the only memory we had a choice in having,” I explained.
“The choice was either take it or stay behind,” Oda said.
“Yes, but it was still a choice.”
“I had no problem with it,” Maiara said. “Dr Ghost explained the reason why we had to take it, despite the freedom it would take away. In all honesty it made a lot of sense.”
The 13th memory we had been given was not what I would call a skill set, it was a way of thinking, to make sure the crew stayed the same size until we reached New Earth.
Hint – Same Size, no new crew members! Hint, Hint.
What I’m getting at is babies.
We are a crew of teenagers after all, going through puberty, I think you all know where I’m going with this…ahem.
To prevent this Dr Ghost decided to give us a memory that would keep us from getting too close with one another, shall we say.
It was also a memory that we had to accept. If we decided not to take it then we would be dropped from the Ark project. Dr Ghost didn’t want the crew to grow, because of food, water and air requirements. If our journey had to be extended all resources needed to be maintained for the maximum length of time. It was crucial that the chances that we would…create new crew members had to be minimised.
“My injection was from a monk,” I said, “Had no interest in erm…er.”
“Just say sex Callum, we may not be adults, but there are literary no humans older than us left,” Maiara said.
“Ok sex, he had no interest in it at all.”
“Mine was a nun,” Maiara said.
“Monk as well,” Oda said.
“A nerd,” Carlton said.
“Brutal,” I commented.
“He was a nerd, women were of no interest to him at all. Not criticising, it allowed to him to concentrate on what he loved to do. Which by the way was curing cancer.”
We all looked at Riley, who again, was manoeuvring another stack of food into her mouth.
“Riley?” I asked after she had finished chewing.
“A vicar,” she said.
We all nodded, it all fit. These memories were necessary to make sure that there were no new Arkonauts.
“It was too late for me though,” Riley said.
“Wait what?” Maiara asked.
“Didn’t stop me from getting pregnant,” Riley said.
“You were pregnant? Before coming on the Ark?” Oda asked. “What happened did the memory fail to take hold in your brain?”
“No it was just injected after I became pregnant. I got an abortion a few weeks before I came on board.”
“I’m sorry Riley,” Maiara said.
“It was hard, I didn’t find out till I was twenty weeks in.” She started picking at her food as she talked. “The doctors said that the baby was not developing properly. Not a surprise really, we were all malnourished, sick from the pollution caused by the Destroyer. The baby wasn’t going to survive.”
“Did, did you want to keep the child?” Maiara asked.
Riley looked away from us for a moment.
“Yes I did, I wanted to be a mother. It’s crazy, but it felt like it was my last chance. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t really conceive of a life after Earth. I didn’t know any of you, it didn’t seem real that I would survive and make new friends. It felt like I was going to die on Earth and experiencing the joy of having children was something I really wanted. But in the end I realised that I and the child wouldn’t live if I carried it to term. It felt like both the right and wrong thing to do. I never got to hold my little girl. I assume that she would be here with us now if she had survived, the first child of a New Earth.”
“Did Dr Ghost pressure you in any way?” Carlton asked, we all looked at him. “I could see him doing that,” he explained.
“I suppose that one more mouth to feed and oxygen and water to provide would have worried him, even for such a small human being,” Maiara agreed.
“The 13th memory was programmed to deactivate when we all reached 18 years old. If she had been with us she would have probably been the oldest child by a few years, she would be a big sister to all the other Arkonaut children that would be born in the future,” Oda theorised.
We all started to realise that Riley was scowling at us from her end of the table.
“Sorry Riley,” we all mumbled.
She looked down at her tray, “Don’t worry, I think about her often too,” she said sadly.
“It was the end of the world Riley, we all had to make tough decisions,” Maiara said.
“Some more than others,” the Irish girl said staring off into space.
We all nodded.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Carlton said.
“So, your first injection was like mine, a soldier, however it wasn’t Captain Amis?” I said to Carlton.
“No, mine was a Scottish soldier,” Carlton said.
“Rank?” I asked.
“Captain,” he replied.
“Mine was a Japanese Colonel,” Oda said, sitting back in his chair and resting his hands behind his head, as if he had just moved a Rook onto a key square and called checkmate.
“Well mine was a Brigadier General,” Maiara said, and Oda slumped.
We then all looked at Riley, the Irish representative. She wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, as she was trying to pile a piece of every type of food from her tray onto one fork, so she could taste the entire meal in one go.
She paused with her mouth open, and the fork hovering in mid-air when she noticed all of us looking at her.
“What?” she said “I just wanted to taste everything at once.”
“We don’t care about that, we’re just talking about who was our first memory injection.”
“Oh yes I heard, mine was a soldier, a sergeant,” she said. Then she tried to put her fork into her mouth, but the carefully stacked mountain toppled back onto her tray. She sighed and started to pile it up again.
“Well then I out rank you all,” Maiara said.
“At least mine was a non-com, you know, the soldiers who have to do the hard work the officers tell him to do,” Riley commented with a smug smile.
“The next few memories though were mostly languages, I think they were all the same?” I asked changing the subject.
“Yes we all learned English, Spanish and Chinese from the three same people,” Carlton said.
“Including Prince George,” I said putting my hand on my heart, “God Bless the royal family.”
“We also had the same memory man?” Oda said.
“That means that the language contributors all had to have 250 injections of nanites to record the memories, then 250 extractions,” Carlton said.
“So did the memory man,” Oda said.
“I think half of all our memories were like that, one person getting 500 hundred odd medical procedures to provide 250 teenagers with their skill sets. The other half were all tailored to our specific nations, which was probably easier to do,” Maiara concluded.
We all sat back to think about that. Nanite memories were copies of the skills and knowledge of very learned people. The nanites would be injected, they would copy specific brain cells then be extracted. I couldn’t imagine doing that 250 times to provide us all with the skills we would need on this journey. There had been 17 of them in all.
“What about the 13th?” I asked.
“Callum,” Maiara chided me.
“Come on it was the only memory we had a choice in having,” I explained.
“The choice was either take it or stay behind,” Oda said.
“Yes, but it was still a choice.”
“I had no problem with it,” Maiara said. “Dr Ghost explained the reason why we had to take it, despite the freedom it would take away. In all honesty it made a lot of sense.”
The 13th memory we had been given was not what I would call a skill set, it was a way of thinking, to make sure the crew stayed the same size until we reached New Earth.
Hint – Same Size, no new crew members! Hint, Hint.
What I’m getting at is babies.
We are a crew of teenagers after all, going through puberty, I think you all know where I’m going with this…ahem.
To prevent this Dr Ghost decided to give us a memory that would keep us from getting too close with one another, shall we say.
It was also a memory that we had to accept. If we decided not to take it then we would be dropped from the Ark project. Dr Ghost didn’t want the crew to grow, because of food, water and air requirements. If our journey had to be extended all resources needed to be maintained for the maximum length of time. It was crucial that the chances that we would…create new crew members had to be minimised.
“My injection was from a monk,” I said, “Had no interest in erm…er.”
“Just say sex Callum, we may not be adults, but there are literary no humans older than us left,” Maiara said.
“Ok sex, he had no interest in it at all.”
“Mine was a nun,” Maiara said.
“Monk as well,” Oda said.
“A nerd,” Carlton said.
“Brutal,” I commented.
“He was a nerd, women were of no interest to him at all. Not criticising, it allowed to him to concentrate on what he loved to do. Which by the way was curing cancer.”
We all looked at Riley, who again, was manoeuvring another stack of food into her mouth.
“Riley?” I asked after she had finished chewing.
“A vicar,” she said.
We all nodded, it all fit. These memories were necessary to make sure that there were no new Arkonauts.
“It was too late for me though,” Riley said.
“Wait what?” Maiara asked.
“Didn’t stop me from getting pregnant,” Riley said.
“You were pregnant? Before coming on the Ark?” Oda asked. “What happened did the memory fail to take hold in your brain?”
“No it was just injected after I became pregnant. I got an abortion a few weeks before I came on board.”
“I’m sorry Riley,” Maiara said.
“It was hard, I didn’t find out till I was twenty weeks in.” She started picking at her food as she talked. “The doctors said that the baby was not developing properly. Not a surprise really, we were all malnourished, sick from the pollution caused by the Destroyer. The baby wasn’t going to survive.”
“Did, did you want to keep the child?” Maiara asked.
Riley looked away from us for a moment.
“Yes I did, I wanted to be a mother. It’s crazy, but it felt like it was my last chance. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t really conceive of a life after Earth. I didn’t know any of you, it didn’t seem real that I would survive and make new friends. It felt like I was going to die on Earth and experiencing the joy of having children was something I really wanted. But in the end I realised that I and the child wouldn’t live if I carried it to term. It felt like both the right and wrong thing to do. I never got to hold my little girl. I assume that she would be here with us now if she had survived, the first child of a New Earth.”
“Did Dr Ghost pressure you in any way?” Carlton asked, we all looked at him. “I could see him doing that,” he explained.
“I suppose that one more mouth to feed and oxygen and water to provide would have worried him, even for such a small human being,” Maiara agreed.
“The 13th memory was programmed to deactivate when we all reached 18 years old. If she had been with us she would have probably been the oldest child by a few years, she would be a big sister to all the other Arkonaut children that would be born in the future,” Oda theorised.
We all started to realise that Riley was scowling at us from her end of the table.
“Sorry Riley,” we all mumbled.
She looked down at her tray, “Don’t worry, I think about her often too,” she said sadly.
“It was the end of the world Riley, we all had to make tough decisions,” Maiara said.
“Some more than others,” the Irish girl said staring off into space.
We all nodded.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Carlton said.
