Hello all! This is the intro to a short story I’ve had in my head for a while. I’m finally starting to write it. Hopefully you enjoy it! Due to not being quite done with my main book, Hectorium Infinium, it’s likely that I won’t work on this quite so often, but when I do, I will try to keep you posted! I really love the premise of this story and I’m eager to try my hand at science fiction. I have often read that the key to good writing is diverse writing and taking breaks to work on side projects. This is a side project for sure. (Even when I finish H.I, this will likely remain a side project. I have a much more ambitious fantasy novel in the works currently, and Lord willing, I will start that in 2024.)

Somewhere in outer space, there was a ship.

This in itself is not so odd. For centuries upon centuries, interstellar travel has been a staple of human civilization. There have been larger ships than this, faster ships, more fuel-efficient ships, more powerful ships, more dangerous ships.

But this ship was special.

The hulking, cubical mass of the KSS Archimedes VII slid silently through the infinite blackness, going nowhere fast. In fact, to any observer watching the stars from the ship’s interior, the Archimedes appeared completely stationary. Yet in reality, the starcraft was macro-thrusting its way to Delta Centauri at 5.31 photometers, that is, 53.1% of the speed of light. Such a speed was unusual, primarily because it was illegal, according to the Eremin Republic statues of sector 892.

However, the word “illegal” was not an important one to the occupants of the Archimedes VII. In a government-funded experimental ship, it rarely is.

The experimental nature of this ship- a class 4 interstellar supercruiser, already unusual for its large size- was defined in Eremin Republic Project X-335, a top-secret program relating to the development of the virtualization chamber.

And this is where our story begins.

***

Victor B. Massanan was content with his life. He had a good job working for the local hospital, a house that was nice enough if he thought about it, a newly-purchased (newly-loaned, if he was honest) Mercedes that he drove mostly to impress his friends, and a small family that he loved dearly, even if he didn’t get to see them often. It was the simple things in life, Victor had decided, that one enjoyed. Forget about politics and who’s running the country, forget about the always-looming international tension between the UN and the NSSR, forget about the car payments that perpetually hung over his head. Everything was fine, as he saw it. Keep it that way.

Walking through the gleaming glass doors of Kansas-Alfonse State Hospital (the hospital was in Arkansas, named after its founders Jeremy Kansas and Nathan Alfonse), he nodded to a few coworkers. Today was different than any other day, and Victor was pumped, though slightly nervous. Today, he would participate in his first-ever brain surgery. Neuroscience had always fascinated Victor, and this time the process was going to be a challenge. Every time the patient woke up, the doctor said, he thought he was in a dream. Certainly a strange case, Victor thought, but one that could be remedied with the help of modern technology. AI could be useful sometimes, he admitted to himself.

Up a flight of stairs and down a hallway he went. Turn left twice and the operating room was straight ahead.

As soon as he walked in, everything went dim and pristine tile flooring crashed into his forehead. Victor stood back up without realizing that he had fallen. The head surgeon looked at him with a concerned expression.

“Is everything okay? You just walked in and tripped on… well, nothing. You just… fell.”

{rnd_se1.form_ec(::k_locals::VA_MAP.enter()[<<k_locals.rewrit!!e().clo#sure el** _@@)joKFdf $makl323%mr }EVEN4_CRA#Itjo3{{‘everything went dim and pristine tile flooring crashed into his forehead. Victor stood back up without realizing that he had fallen. The head surgeon looked at him with a concerned expression.

“Is everything okay? You just walked in and tripped on… well, nothing. You just… fell.”

Victor’s brow furrowed. Yes, that had been what had happened. How interesting. Maybe he should report it to

Traceback (most recent call last):
MemoryError::<MemoryFaultError> get_localseed.xnn.2.b ln2382 chr54 “proc.get_seed_rq_gen(alg=default<REF4_seed_fn>)”
memory sector 0x3e83258 overwrite
Insufficient permissions – – – reattempting overwrite as immediate group system
memory sector 0x3e83258 overwrite
Insufficient permissions – – – reattempting overwrite as resolver
memory sector 0x3e83258 overwrite
Insufficient permissions – – – address block [9-0293f^^] denied qbit access

[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.1.1] Sending no-panic signal… no-panic signal successfully sent
[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.1.2] Releasing memory sector 0x3e83258…
[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.1.3] Error: Memory sector already in use.

…
[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.3499.82011] Sending panic signal… panic signal successfully sent
[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.3499.82012] Requesting maintenance operator…
[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.3499.82013] Maintenance operator request failed (reason: unknown) [NULL recieved]
[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.3499.82014] Shutting down general systems bus…
[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.3499.82152] General systems bus successfully shut down.
[ARCH-V7-VC-V2-EHEMSv39.4 0000001.424754236.3499.82153] Goodbye from the devs! If you liked EHEMS, feel free to contribute at ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::><:L0r8huwer&8513/.3q3.ry{ituiY~ |A};Bk4(dJ8t9%+[f~S{E<^

***

Deep within the circuit-lined bowels of the KSS Archimedes VII, something went wrong.

To be more specific, vc-subsys-d0.2 process 0000001 encountered an uncaught MemoryFaultError.

This was not supposed to happen.

The reason why it did happen was elementary, really. The ultra-advanced random number generator algorithm REF4 (Random, Effectual, Foolproof Algorithm 4), nicknamed “Efficiency 4” by the programmers, spit out the same number twice in a row. So much for the “Random.”

This was not supposed to happen, either. The probability of such an incident was unimaginably low. The chances were one against three hundred fifteen octillion five hundred seventy-six septillion. So inconceivably low that had a trillion processes been producing a trillion random numbers every microsecond, it would happen only once in 1.0004 x 10^147 years, if at all- a near infinite number, far longer than even the most generous estimates of the age of the universe. Once in eternity. Thusly, according to the developers of the there was no need to write an error-catch program.

According to the computer models, that is.

But computers aren’t always correct, and sometimes the impossible chance does happen. All anyone can know is that when it happened, process 0000001 glitched. The program’s Error-Handling and Emergency Management System (EHEMS, pronounced “ahems” by most), kicked in and tried to figure out what had just happened. At the same time in a different subprocess, the event seed calibrator repeated itself and then freaked out. Memory blocks that should have remained intact were overwritten and then overwritten again. Permissions were denied for rudimentary file operations.

EHEMS was now in panic mode, and it (incorrectly) diagnosed the problem: The system was too cold. Why it came to this decision is unnecessary and highly convoluted, but it did exactly what it thought would work: it increased all heating element outputs by 372 percent.

This really messed things up. First, the overhead runtime trackers died, their super-sensitive circuits fried by too much heat. This in itself led to a host of problems.

In another millisecond, three out of the five interprocess signalers went down. This birthed more issues in turn. The vibration suppressors started to spark, and the neurodigital interfaces shut off with a quiet click.

The situation, in short, was growing worse faster than a ship traveling 53.1% at the speed of light.

Stasis systems failed. The sensory transmitters crashed and wouldn’t restart. Perpetuity modules shut off.

A body fell to the floor from where it had been hovering in zero-gravity.

And then the man opened his eyes.