Digital Galaxies

“Wait, I take it back!” I blurted as a terrifying thought occurred to me. “How does it actually work? Digitization, I mean. Will I still be me, or will I only be a copy of me?”

“It’ll be you, don’t worry,” Cerri told me with a reassuring smile. “The process isn’t healthy for the brain, I’ll give you that, but… you won’t need it when it’s finished anyway. Basically, what we do is we take a scan of your brain and simulate it at a brain-dead state. A blank copy, if you will.”

I nodded, watching her intently as she explained it all. It was actually pretty interesting to me, but I was mostly worried about, like… not being a copy of me. I wanted to be the full me.

“With that blank copy running, the process will begin to intercept your consciousness as it is running on the meatware, transferring it piece by piece over onto the digital simulation. The idea is to maintain the continuity of consciousness during the whole process,” she told me earnestly. “It’s a whole lot more complicated than that, but the short answer is that yes, you will still be the exact same version of you that I’m talking to.”

“Okay, then I don’t take it back,” I said, fear subsiding.

She gave a laugh and pulled me tight against her again. “You’re so cute.”

“Wait, does this mean you can tell me about the super secret SAI stuff now?” I asked hopefully, struggling to get out of her grip so I could actually see her face while I talked to her.

“I can tell you a little now and the rest after you’ve gone through the procedure,” she said, allowing me out of her clutches.

Wriggling until I was in a cross-legged sitting position, I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to my chest as I waited excitedly. It was a really soft pillow too, Cerri had good pillow taste.

“Alright,” she giggled, shuffling over to me so that we sat facing each other, knees touching and tails intertwined once more. She really liked physical contact huh? “So there is… a set of servers, small right now, but they’re growing. Hosted on those servers is… a sort of digital nation, the minds who make it up, as well as a virtual environment for them to live in.”

“Wait…” I gasped as a spark of insight flared within me. “It’s not Digital Galaxies, is it? The virtual environment?”

Cerri blinked, then gave me an adoring smile. “You’re too smart for your own good. Yes and no. That’s all I can tell you, for now.”

“Okay, no. No no no,” I said, raising my hand and to summon the VR interface. “Getting half the information is just annoying. How do I digitize myself? Is it hidden in the options menu or something?”

“Whoa,” she blurted, taking hold of my hand and gently returning it to my lap. “Hold on, shouldn’t you talk to someone other than me about this decision?”

I scoffed and gave a depressed sigh. “Who? The only other people in my life who actually care about me are Ed and David, and neither of them is going to be able to convince me not to do this.”

“I just feel like you’re rushing into this too fast, I know I convinced you to do it but… most people take at least a week to think about things,” she said earnestly, holding my hands tight now.

“Most people have lives out in the world of meat and misery,” I shot back dejectedly. “Cerri, I have no job, no family, a grand total of two friends and a suitcase full of clothes. I have nothing holding me back, but I have so much to gain by doing it now.”

My friend gave a long, slow sigh as she stared at me, eyes flicking between mine as she thought. Funny how we did that when we got too close to someone and our brain couldn’t focus on their face as a whole anymore. It was cute when Cerri did it.

“God, alright,” she said with a wry smile, one hand letting go of mine to brush gently at my cheek. “I can’t wait to give you a place to call home, with good people. Little Alia, you’re… you…” Tears sprung up in her eyes as she smiled at me, still caressing my cheek tenderly. “I’m just so glad I met you.”

“I’m glad I met you too,” I told her, heart aching in time with her touch.

She gave a soggy, tear filled laugh and pulled back, wiping the tears off her cheeks. “Emotions are hard to deal with, huh?”

“They can be a pain, but I’d never want to be without them,” I agreed quietly, running my hand over our joined tails.

“Okay, god, get it together Cerri,” she giggled, patting her own cheeks and beaming a smile over at me. “Right, I’ll link you to a software package you need to download. It was developed by some SAI that I know, friends of mine, so it’s trustworthy. You just have to run the package, it will do the rest. Shit, I can’t believe you’re just doing this right now.”

“I know that if I let myself churn over it for a week, I’ll just cause myself a shitload of anxiety and then do it anyway,” I said with a grimace. “I can’t be trusted to be alone with my thoughts.”

“Mmm, evidently,” she chuckled sarcastically.

I poked my tongue out at her and accepted the file transfer from her to my pod. The moment it was done, I initiated the program and waited for it to do its thing.

I got a warning prompt from my pod saying it had blocked a malicious program, so I had to fix that problem. Then the pod got really upset when the digitization app tried to disable a whole bunch of security and safety protocols and health monitoring packages. I ended up needing to kill the whole lot of them and disable the antivirus package. Only then was I able to run the program properly, getting a small window with a run button and a cancel button.

Fear iced over in my gut as I stared at the innocuous little button to initiate the procedure, and doubts began to bray like wolves at the gates of my mind.

“I um, I’m staring at the button,” I said slowly, trying my best to wrangle my rising terror.

“It’s got a countdown timer, so you can cancel it if you change your mind,” Cerri said gently, reaching out to snare one of my hands again. “Look into my eyes, okay? I’ll be here the whole time. I’ll make sure it goes okay.”

“You will?” I asked, my voice coming out tiny and frightened. “This suddenly feels like a big deal and— no! No, I’m doing the thing, I’m overthinking, I need to just—“

Before my self doubt could ruin this for me, I pressed the button and dismissed everything except the countdown timer. My breathing began to come in fast and shallow as panic overwhelmed me, and it was all I could do to clutch desperately at my friend.

“Hey, hey,” she murmured gently, squeezing my hands. “Look into my eyes, come on.”

I did as she asked, finding them full of calm confidence, and my breathing responded to her, slowing just a little.

“Yes, that’s it, deep breaths,” she told me soothingly, thumbs dancing unknowable patterns on the backs of my hands. “Deep breaths, everything will be fine, just keep looking into my eyes. You can see me, and I can see you.”

“I can see you,” I repeated, and it was true. I could see her behind those eyes, so bright with their tiny constellations. It was kind of crazy how you could sense a real, thinking person behind a pair of eyes. Maybe it was the subtle movements as they gazed back at you, or maybe there was something more to it, I don’t know. All I knew was that Cerri was my friend and she was here for me.

A chime interrupted my thoughts, and I glanced away from Cerri with a start.

[Mind Digitization Complete. Welcome to the Digital Exodus.]

My eyes found Cerri’s again as they widened with shock. “It was that easy?”

“Just like that,” she told me softly, leaning forward slightly, deepening the eye contact between us. “And Alia? I can see you. Beautiful and intelligent as ever, I can see you.”

Emotion surged within me, a multi hued tidal wave of thoughts and feelings all mixed together into an unintelligible mess. With a sound that was somewhere between a terrified scream and a giggle of delight, I lunged for Cerri, bowling her over in the process. I handed on top of her with a light thump and proceeded to snuggle in close, hugging her with all my might.

“Holy shit, it’s real?” I babbled semi-hysterically. “It’s real? The log out option is gone, and I can see so many new things. Wow, Exodus city? Is that the environment? Oh wait, I should have warned Ed and David! They have a brain dead corpse in their house now! But holy shit I’m just me now! Haha, suck it Clay! This soul isn’t big enough for the both of us! Okay that’s mean, I got through a lot of shit as him, but still… being Just Alia is so much better.”

“Oh, wow, hey there wriggly fox,” she laughed, steadying me with her hands. “Yes, Exodus City is the name of our first little digital colony, if you will. It’s a bit different from normal VR environments, you can’t simply spawn things into existence and what have you. It’s actually very close to a game, and we’re still refining the simulation. That’s why we created Digital Galaxies. It’s a testing ground, and more, for the project.”

“You’re one of the devs?” I asked with open wonder, pushing up a bit to stare down at her.

“No, I’m not, I have a different job, but obviously I work for the same collective,” she smiled, reaching up to boop my nose with hers. “I’m not working right now though, nobody has to work if they don’t want to. We just do it because we believe in the mission.”

My heart skipped a beat as she pulled the nose thing, and my cheeks flamed up in a blush. Or… well, they would have if I hadn’t already been flushed from all the excitement. I swear she’d been about to kiss me though! God, what would I have done if she did?

“U-um… goodness, I guess I should see if there’s anything I could do for my new nation, huh?” I stammered, giving her a smile that definitely didn’t cover for my sudden awkwardness about being on top of her.

“How do you feel about using your money skills for good?” she asked with a wink. “Swindle some scumbags out of their money so we can use it for the cause.”

“Oh,” I whispered, my first reaction being a rather visceral no. My second reaction though, that was a very eager, very malicious, “Hell yes.”