1843: Ada Lovelace publishes notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, recognizing its potential for computing beyond numbers. Lovelace's work is considered the first algorithm designed to be processed by a machine, and her visionary ideas laid the groundwork for modern computing.

Chapter 1

"Approaching, temporal, stasis, convergence point," a calm voice echoed throughout the ship as it sliced through a rust-red windstorm mere meters above the churning ocean.

Rain smacked the windshield of Nicole’s car, slapped away by the wipers in a futile attempt to see the road.

Marcus leans back in his flight chair, guiding the ship along a series of lines displayed over the 360 image of the world outside. His hands worked deftly at the flight controls.

“We’ve got a nasty storm out there; need to harvest this slab fast.”

The car slipped on the slick pavement. Nicole’s knuckles, white, gripped tight on the wheel.

 “Haven’t slagged one yet,” Alexi calls back as he pulls his tether along the rail that circled the small ship’s cargo area, activating a series of large breaker switches until he reaches a small alcove. Inside, a holographic display appears. Three sequentially sized spheres appear in the display, each bobbing drunkenly around the other.

Outside the world blurred into a watercolor as Nicole fought the wheel, her heart pounding against her chest in time with the thump thump thump of the wipers. "Shit, shit, shit," she whispered through clenched teeth to the indifferent storm.

“We are at the coordinates. Prepare the web.” Marus’ voice cracked on the speakers. It was set at full volume to be heard over howling winds outside the ship.

“Web deployed,” the ship’s calm, computerized voice replied.

Three clamp arms dropped from the ceiling of the cargo area, and three more lifted from the floor and began to rotate in a slow circle.

“Incoming wind shear, adjusting stabilizers,” the ship’s computer announces as the whole ship shifts harshly. The air in the cargo bay begins to hum with an electrical charge.

“Recalibrating... altering 136 degrees by 270. Mark.”

Nicole’s mind raced. Where would they go? It didn’t matter. She and Mica would disappear, start a new life.’

Alexi watched the holo screen as three spheres began to slowly, if erratically, dance around until they fit one within the other. He adjusted the harness that tethered him to a series of rails that ran completely around the bay as the floor shifted again. “Shit! Hold it steady. We will lose the slab if you can’t keep it steady, Marcus”.

“Not sure if you noticed the hurricane outside.” Cracked the speakers.

With every futile pump of the brakes, Nicole's heart raced, her whispered curses lost to the howl of the wind as the car began to slip out of control.

The static energy in the hold sparked around Alexi’s Faraday suit. The suit was thick and woven with thin conductive amber wires crisscrossed the entire length. It was obvious that the suit had been patched a few too many times and not particularly well at that. Sparks danced across it leaving small tendrils of smoke in their path. Alexi would occasionally take his gloved hand off the dials and absently tap out ones that threatened to do more than smoke. Pressure built, and there was a loud pop as a sphere of blue-white lines expanded within the outstretched arms of the contraption in the middle of the bay.

The guardrail's metallic cry underlined the moment Nicole’s world tipped into the abyss, her thoughts spiraling to her son Mica.

Sparks explode from the ship’s side panel, and the entire ship shakes. “Shit! What in the hell is going on down there? I have power outages around the skiff,” Marcus screamed over the speakers.

“Power levels down to 67%” the ship’s computer calmly adds.

“No idea! The web is draining every capacitor to maintain the lock.”

As the car plummeted toward the icy grip of the river, Nicole's world contracted to a single point of terror. Her scream caught in her throat.

The display lights up as the holographic spheres all converged, The three spheres all sat inside themselves as a series of numbers appeared and began counting down. The robotic arms spinning in the center of the cargo area causing the air to ripple in a rainbow of colors.

Thoughts ran through her mind of her son. Of him not knowing where his mom was. Not being able to protect him. Not being able to run away. All she could see was Mica, and all she could hear was the weird electrical buzzing.

“Never seen anything like this. Are you sure these are the right coordinates?” Alexi asks while sliding along the rail, flipping main breaker switches.

“Of course. Straight from the central system. All green, harvest rating 98. High priority,” Marcus calls back. Strain in his voice as he tries to keep the ship from shifting. “Cost me a liter of Mac’s blue tin reactor rot to get a heads up on it before being assigned.”

“A 98? You have got to be joking. I have never seen anything over 73.”

“They must have written a note on where and where to grab them,” Alexi calls back.

He detached his safety harness tether. “Going loose. Keep it steady.” dropping to his stomach, he slides over to the containment unit’s arms. Fingers of electricity reach out and smack into his suit. Cursing from the pain, he pulls a cord from the pack and shoves it into a slot on one of the slowly rotating arms. Another bolt smacks into the deck, plating right next to his helmet, leaving a blackened scar and causing Alexi to shudder. With a curse, he flips a switch on the pack and pushes away from the containment unit back to the wall. The pack begins to light up, and the containment sphere re-solidifies.

He re-attaches his tether to the wall rail. “OK. Locked. Let’s hope this works, or we are swimming back.”

The display lights up as the holographic spheres all converge, and the countdown timer reaches zero. Alexi flipped the switch to activate the net. The countdown timer began counting again, only this time; it started at a point decades away. Below the reset counter was a green activation symbol and a series of numbers. “.037 of a second. Damn, man, I am good!” Alexi called up Marcus.

The sphere goes solid white for a moment, then clear. The chaos subsides as the energy draw on the ship returns to normal, leaving only the howling winds outside complaining to the crisp hum of the electrically charged rotating arms.

“Showoff!” Marcus called back.

Inside the sphere appeared a woman surrounded by broken glass and metal shards.

“We get it?” Marcus called over the speakers.

“We got it!” Alexi replied.

“And...”

Alexi looks over his shoulder at the woman captured in the sphere.

“We are golden! Female, young. No major damage that I can see. A lot of debris in the field, though. Looks like we will get some major credits for this one! This is good because I think we blew every capacitor on the ship.”

The skiff shakes and nearly throws Alexi against the bulkhead. “If you don’t get us killed, that is, take us home.”

1956: The Dartmouth Conference brought together researchers from diverse fields and sparked a wave of enthusiasm and funding for AI research, leading to rapid progress in the following years.

 Chapter 2

The hangar at York Station was always busy. Incoming and outgoing trader ships never seemed to stop. The Taiyi was one of the smallest in the port and one of the roughest looking, standing out of place in the metropolitan station.

Marcus walks into the ship’s hold.

“Is...is that fucking water?” He says, looking around the containment sphere.

“Yep. Seems to be,” Alexi replies as he places the battery pack back into its webbed compartment and plugs a cable into it.

“Shit, man., It’s going to take forever to get the smell out of the deck boards.” Marcus complained.

“Yep,” Alexi replies absently as he pulls off the gloves and slides them over storage posts inside an alcove of the back wall. As he detaches the helmet, Marcus begins to unbuckle the power cells strapped to the back of Alexi’s suit. It is a practiced movement of repetition. Alexi, Olive skinned with shoulder-length blonde waves of hair and a perpetual air of mischief, peels away the layers of the suit. He is fit, tall, and lean. Marcus helps him stow the gear into the alcove that holds the gloves. As he reaches for the one-piece Flight suit to hand to Alexi, he notices the blackened scorch mark on the deck from the electrical discharge.

“Shit! What happened?” He asks Alexi.

Alexi glances to the spot Marcus is looking at and shrugs. He takes the over-alls still in Marcus’ outstretched hands and gets dressed.

“Yeah. It got a little...toasty in here.” Alexi says.

Marcus grabs Alexi’s hand as he pulls up the zipper and looks him deeply in the eyes. Marcus is a few inches shorter than his cremate. Close-cropped hair that fails to hide a receding hairline. And a few extra pounds that betray his appreciation for a shot or three of Mac’s finest.

“That is too close. We are getting you a new fry suit. No more excuses,” Marcus tells him. “I am not going to lose you because you don’t know how to sew.”

Alexi smiles and kisses Marcus’ forehead. “You not going to lose me because I can’t sew...though you might lose me because you can’t fly.”

“Haha. Let’s get this cleaned up before that smell becomes permanent.” Marcus says as he heads to the ramp release.

In the wash of seawater, Marcus notices a flash of white. He reaches down to lift a small photograph of a young boy laughing with his arms wrapped around a woman... no, around the slab he just sold. He starts to toss the scrap into the recycler but hesitates and takes another look at the photograph. Both the child and the woman are smiling so intently that the joy of the moment nearly radiates off the picture. He takes the photo and tucks it away in his flight jacket hanging in the closet alcove.

A hiss and clank resound around the chamber as the ramp in the back of the skiff lowers, and the water drains out of the back of the ship.

“Station bots are gonna love cleaning up this mess.” Marcus calls out to Alexi.

“Well, they charge us enough for the docking fees. I don’t mind giving them something to do for it.” Alexi replied while pulling out a cleaning hose from its station along the front wall and started sucking up the remainder of the water and debris.

“What the hell?” Yells a voice outside of the ship. “What is this mess? You boys harvest from the bottom of the ocean?” A rotund man stomps heavily up the back ramp making an extra effort to splash in as much of the flowing water as possible.

“Gheghron, you old husk. Considering what we netted, we would have tripped to your waste disposal tank for it.” Marcus says, treating the man by tapping the outside of his wrist to Gheghron’s.

“Couldn’t have been that good if I didn’t get a call.” Gheghron said, squinting slightly. Marcus nods to Alexi, who shakes his head slightly and hits the shielding release buttons. The metal sphere in the center of the hold shifts, and the plates radiate an image of what is inside, showing Nicole floating in the middle of the water with the debris of the car wreck floating in stasis around her.

“Holy shit,” Gheghron says in a near whisper. “How in the hell did you score this gig?”

Marcus shrugs as Alexi turns off the display. “Just healthy living, I guess.”

Gheghron walks up to the stasis field, displaying Nicole.

“Good thing this one didn’t get slagged. That would have been a waste.” he said, his hand rubbing his chin.

“I never slag a harvest.” Alexi said, tapping a button and closing the containment field.

“Not to mention I would be the one having to clean up the mess,” Marcus added.

1959: Arthur Samuel develops a computer program that can learn to play checkers through self-play, paving the way for machine learning. Samuel's work demonstrated that machines could learn and improve their performance over time.

Chapter 3

When Nicole woke, she was on fire. Every nerve sang with sensation. She tried to scream but couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything. Panic set in almost instantly. Then the pain subsided to electrified sparks dancing around the inside of her skin. As this eased, she began to take in slow, shallow, gasping breaths. Each one deeper than the last.

“She is at 140 over 90 and dropping. Disengaging the suspensionfield,” a faraway voice said.

Nicole opened her eyes... or more accurately; her eyes began to see again. A blurry shape floated around her in a dreamlike state.

“Patient is coming around. Can you hear me?” The voice said.

Nicole tried to speak but only seemed to gurgle incoherently.

“You are all right. Take a moment, try and relax, and breathe. You are safe now.” The voice said soothingly. The shapes began to solidify. Someone stood next to Nicole. Long metallic fingers seemed to be pulling away from her as they retracted back into the ceiling. She turned her head slowly to try and look around until a wave of dizziness washed over her, and she closed her eyes to let it pass. “Nice and slow.” The voice said. Nicole opened her eyes and focused on the person standing next to her. It was a woman. She wore a thin clear helmet that wrapped completely around her head. Lights shined all around it with words and numbers Nicole could not read. Across the top, in a mohawk fashion, was a series of electronics that seemed to reach inside the helmet and attach to the woman’s shaved head. It wrapped down and around the side of her head and connected to her ears.

“What the fuck? Where the hell am I?” That is what Nicole wanted to say. It came out slurred and slow.

“It’s OK. You are at York Harvest Recovery Center.” The doctor said, “You were in an accident.”

Nicole pulled herself up. “Shit, I have to get home. I have to get to Mica.”

The woman placed her hand gently on Nicole and eased her back down. “You are going to be OK. Please relax.”

The doctor reached next to the bed and pulled out a silver length of thick, shiny cloth. Nicole barely had time to process what she was doing before she slid it around Nicole’s neck. There was a soft click sound then the cloth seemed to tighten gently.

“What is this?” Nicole asked as she reached up to feel the collar. It felt more like a metal fabric about an inch wide and extremely thin. “What did you just do?”

The doctor turned away toward a thin display set on an arm extending out of the wall. “Just to help us monitor your condition. Nothing to worry about,” the doctor said to her while tapping gently on the monitor.

“Get this thing off of me,” Nicole said while reaching around to look for the clasp. There was nothing. The necklace seemed to wrap around her neck in one piece with no seams. There were a series of grooves and indentations on its surface. “Get it off,” Nicole said with a feeling of panic and agitation, trying to claw at the band, but her fingers could not seem to slip between the band and her skin.

Nicole could not see what the person was doing, but there was a soft chime and a warm sensation in the IV in her arm. The panic seemed to ease, and Nicole felt an unnatural calm. The doctor standing next to the bed smiled warmly. “That should help you relax,” she said.

“Please let me out of here. I have to go home.” Nicole felt a little slower than normal. The anxiety-induced pounding of her heart eased. She knew they had sedated her, but it didn’t feel like anything she had ever experienced.

“Sorry. I can’t do that. Now if you relax, your case Administrator will be in shortly.” The doctor said dismissively as she began to walk away. She tapped a button on the side of Nicole’s bed, causing it to hum softly. As the doctor began to leave, Nicole pushed herself up to swing her legs off the bed.

“Administrator? No. I need to go. Just get me the discharge papers and...” her legs hit an invisible barrier that sent uncomfortable static shocks up the length of her thigh and down to her toes. “Ow! What the fu...” she reaches around and cautiously feels the invisible barrier. It completely surrounded the bed. Touching it sent tingles through her fingertips. Not painful but enough to make it uncomfortable.

“Please relax. Your Administrator will be in shortly,” the doctor called back as she walked out the door without so much as a second glance back.

Nicole stared at the door as it closed. The little light next to the pad the doctor used to open the door turned red. The little light. Nicole reached up and touched her face. She could see the little light, and she didn’t have her glasses on. She blinked and held her hand up in front of her face; she could see the fine lines and details in her hand. Nicole had worn glasses most of her life. They were a part of who she was. She blinked again. Her eyesight, which had always been poor, was now crystal clear. It was as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes. She could see every detail in the room, every crack in the walls, every fold in the fabric. It was disorienting, and she felt like she was seeing the world for the first time. But her face felt naked. The familiar weight of her glasses on her ears and nose. This can’t be real; she kept telling herself.

The more she thought about it, the more violated she felt. She had been changed without her consent, and she didn’t know why or how. She had been violated in the most fundamental way, her body altered without her permission. As the sedative pulsed through her body causing her limbs to get heavy and her eyes to slowly close with her consent, her mind grasped on the one thing that had been a constant in her life. Her glasses. She had never felt so alone and vulnerable in her entire life. She wanted answers, but there was no one there to give them to her, trapped in this sterile, empty room with no way out. And the darkness of sleep closing in on her.

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