For Every Action - The Quantum Mechanic Series Book I

Jessica floated. Seated in lotus position, she rotated lazily above the floor of Sheng’s command and control center. It had been reverted to the plain white room she had first seen, pristinely white and featureless. But now, a small addition sat comically in the corner, a tiny plastic Christmas tree in a bright red pot. There was no cord that she could discover connecting it to a wall socket, but the little white lights in its branches twinkled nonetheless. It was a feeble, but rather adorable, attempt by him to make her feel at home and she hadn’t had the heart to tell him that trees like that were only for the Christmas holidays. Several days ago he had shown her the photo from a soldier’s Christmas leave that he found in the database and asked her if she thought the tree was pretty. She had said yes, simply because it was the first time she had seen him show any interest in how something looked. Then the tree appeared later and she made it a point to tell him how much she liked it, just so she could see him smile. His face had been completely emotionless when she first met him, but now he had begun developing expressions and she liked the one he made when he was pleased with himself.

But he wasn’t able to devote computing cycles for virtual environments very often and so the room had become something of a home for her. Fortunately, when they trained together he could speed up her brain to match the Q-SLAM’s light based systems and then seconds became days and minutes became months. So when she wasn’t training she slept in real-world time, but between the long stretches of nothingness and hyper-time training sessions, her “days” had become far, far longer. Sometimes she tried reading books from the database or watching videos. But most of it was just boring instructional material or long specifications manuals. One of the soldiers who acted out a lot of the weapons and maintenance videos had been kinda cute though. So she had watched those enough times to be able to field clean an M16B1, or fill out an Army 8895-E form if she ever needed to.

Occasionally she would concentrate enough to slip into her new body, just to feel it and see through its eyes. It was a gauzy and distant experience... cast in hazy blue darkness and filled with the deep, baritone rhythm of her liquiturbine hearts. Sheng only gave her enough access to feel, and not move, so she simply napped when she had down time now, or remained in a deep state of meditation. He had taught her this skill quite well and it allowed her to better appreciate an astounding gift he had recently bestowed on her.

The absence of pain.

She knew that for anyone else this was ordinary... the default state. But to someone like her, whose life had become a constant flood of relentless, unending hurt... this was bliss. Sure, for a while during her body’s disassembly there had been a lot of pain. More than she had ever endured before actually, but that had not really troubled her. Pain had been her constant companion for a very long time and she had learned how to simply tune it out. It hardly mattered anymore if the anguish went from normal volumes to ear-splitting decibels. To her it was all just the same crap, just at different volumes. That was probably hard for most people to believe, but the truth was that being violently dismembered changes your perspective.

So over the time she had been here she had quietly passed through that storm of howling agony like Daniel in the lion’s den. It no longer held power over her and through months of training in virtual time with Sheng she had learned to harness it. She had grown to understand that pain could be turned into strength if it was properly channeled. It was a skill that had been mastered by gurus and warriors alike all over the world and HDMRIs had revealed the secrets of what it did to their brains. So she had endured hours of neural-realignment as Sheng replicated the same configurations into her, integrating them into her neurology as she practiced the techniques. She had to admit that at time the process had been... disconcerting, but when he finished her mind had contained many of the same underlying patterns. She now possessed the same neural circuitry as Martial Arts masters, Maori warriors, and military snipers. She could flow her pain through it and the process was now oddly comfortable and companionable... like a friend. It brought her strength and she felt surprisingly cleansed by it... purified by the way it burned off the turmoil in her heart. All of the loss, despair, and fear that could fill her at times withered under its laser-like focus, and she would let it drift away like ashes. In its place a focused rage was taking root, a fury so pure and clean that it gleamed with a wicked and deadly perfection. It comforted her, and she kept it sheathed inside her heart like a blade.

But then she was suddenly drawn out of her meditation by a readout in the upper right corner of her vision, informing her that one of Sheng’s training simulations was about to begin.

She groaned inwardly and returned her attention to her digital world, knowing that the time she had gotten to rest must be over. It was time for another ass kicking... and she was getting really sick of it.

But then in the blink of an eye; her world ceased to be the formless, pristine void she had been enjoying, and it exploded into a dazzling display of multicolored light. Swirling code surrounded her, coursing through the environment, and slowly coalescing into a flat, open plane. Trees, grass, and various floras erupted from the ground and the sky gradually hued into a brilliant azure.

Then she found herself standing alone in a grassy meadow, clothed in loose, white silk pants and a matching top. Her feet were bare, and her now voluminous white-blonde hair pulled back into a braided ponytail. She could hear birds chirping in the distance, and the sun beat down on her with a heavy strength. Looking around, she took a deep breath, and squared her stance to get ready. The earth beneath her feet felt overly coarse, too detailed... and everything else had a level of clarity that was almost painful. She knew this was just a preview of how the world would feel in her new body and Sheng made the simulations as close as he could to help her grow acclimated to it.

She waited pensively for him, knowing that he was near, hiding and watching. Waiting for her to screw up so he could come racing in again to clobber her. It would be the four hundred and seventy sixth combat simulation he had run for her - and she had yet to land a single blow on him. It had been irritating by the fifth time he had humiliated her by avoiding her furiously thrown punches with liquid ease, infuriating by the fifteenth, and absolutely enraging by the fiftieth. She had thrown everything she had into it, but the pattern had continued over month after month of their accelerated time together. Eventually the idea of actually hitting him had begun to seem impossible and she had shifted to trying just to avoid another brutal beat down.

But she knew better than to protest. Their agreement put her completely in his hands and in exchange he was making her into the weapon she needed to be. Without him there was no hope for vengeance... her parent’s deaths, and her own brutalization would go unanswered.

She knew the process of rebuilding her brain would be complete soon, but it would still feel like months. That was still a good thing, because she needed more time to think, to plan, and most importantly - to train. It was critical that she master certain skills before she was connected to her new body. The vast majority of what constituted “her” remained virtual right now and that allowed her to train without restraint until her reconstruction was complete. But then the virtual environment would have to be shut off and Sheng would walk her through the process of calibrating her power and weapons systems.

She didn’t want to admit it, but she was actually looking forward to that process. The long stretches of nothingness she experienced in here, combined with his ruthless clobberings, were getting old.

Then she suddenly remembered where she was and that it was not a good time to be daydreaming. But before she could refocus there was a whistling sound followed by the thunder of a bone-shattering impact that slammed her into the earth. Soil exploded in every direction, flung free by the sheer magnitude of the strike and the wind was violently knocked out of her. Moments later the dust settled and she found herself gasping for air as she lay face down in a crater nearly three feet deep... with Sheng standing on her back. As she choked and coughed, he shook his head in consternation, “You must stop thinking so two dimensionally Miss Jessica. The Embodied can easily deliver such an impact and I adjusted my weight to only half of theirs.”

“They’re not going to jump on me from a plane Sheng”, she muttered as she spat through the dirt several times to clear her mouth.

“Perhaps not”, he mused, “But they are capable of leaping high enough to achieve this velocity on descent. If you are standing still in battle, one may surprise you. This tactic was taught to them during their training and they have had over a decade to practice.” Then with his last comment he shifted his weight and somehow managed to make the way he stood on her even more uncomfortable.

“Ugh shit... Fuck me”, she groaned.

“I doubt you need to fear a sexual assault from them Miss Jessica. The Embodied are genderless and have no hormonal sex drive.”

This brought forth a colorful stream of profanity from her before she yelled, “It’s a fucking expression you binary assed buttmunch! Something you say when you feel like you can’t win.”

He peered at her curiously, “Feelings of hopelessness create sexual arousal in human females?”

Jessica cringed, “Oh for fu... shit... ugh, never mind Sheng. Just get off me.”

“No.”

Frustrated with his obstinacy she twisted herself violently, “Seriously Sheng. Get off”, she yelled, but no matter how she struggled he remained intractably in place.

“Miss Jessica. You have failed to progress beyond the most basic tactical maneuvers and hand to hand combat skills I have taught you. At this rate you will be unprepared before it is time to boot the OS of your new body and calibrate its systems. I cannot train you after that and all of my work will be for nothing. The Embodied will destroy you without much effort.”

Infuriated, Jessica struggled harder, trying unsuccessfully to unseat him, “Oh fuck you Sheng. You know I don’t know what I’m doing! I’ve never been in a fight before. Not even with another girl!”

Sheng shifted again, grinding his heels into her back, and making her teeth clench, “Yes Miss Jessica, I understand that many children like you, raised in the shelter of the US, have never faced the hardships of poverty, starvation, or any real sort of adversity. Your parents discourage any kind of aggressiveness or even healthy competition. They raise you in a world that has no winners or losers and everyone gets a trophy for participating and as a result you are unprepared for what the world is really like. Your generation lacks even the most rudimentary fighting instincts. But I had hoped that your desire for vengeance would have made you different. That it would have brought out those qualities in you... Unfortunately that has not come to pass and so more radical steps must be taken if I am to ensure your success...”

“Radical? Sheng... what are you?”

“This will be unpleasant I’m afraid.”

“Sheng, what the fuck are you...”

“Please hold still Miss Jessica, I must concentrate to do this properly.”

“Sheng! Wait! What are you?”

But she never got to finish her protest because a new terminal appeared in her vision, along with a horribly disturbing sensation deep in her mind. It was an invasive and violating thing, making her feel as if she was being touched somewhere inherently, and very fundamentally private. The word “violation” came to mind for her, but to accurately describe what she was feeling it would have to be cranked up to the tenth power. She trembled as she realized how much worse it was than just being physically invaded. That she could deal with, and had many times over the last year. But this was far worse. It felt like something wasn’t just invading what she was, it was invading WHO she was, reaching into the very core of her being.

Then data began coursing in thick ropy strands across the blazingly blue console and she felt a sickening... push. She screamed, unable to control herself as alien thoughts, feelings, and experiences invaded her mind, searing through her cerebral cortex, and bluntly force-writing themselves into her subconscious. Years of information flooded in, quickly boiling up into decades... and then centuries. The flood continued to grow and grow until it became a raging torrent, then a deluge, then a world-ending tsunami. A horrible mental agony consumed her as the assault continued to redouble every few seconds and the data stream swelled to consume more bandwidth. Her eyes flew wider with every increase and she shrieked as huge, silvery pieces of other people’s lives were inscribed into the fabric of her being. Unable to free herself, she vomited and retched as a perverse sensation of impregnation filled her mind. Then her consciousness collapsed as violent seizures took hold. Her virtual form spasmed uncontrollably, and her limbs beat a rapid epileptic tattoo into the dirt.

After a moment her mind resorted to the fallback safety of catatonia and her consciousness simply shut down. Then she lay as still as death under the feet of her unrelenting tutor, twitching occasionally as the data flowing into her subconscious shaped her mind like a rock being worn smooth by water.

Hours, days, or months later... it hardly seemed to matter anymore, the dataflow wound itself down and stopped. Her mind staggered and deep within the newly technological substrate of her Cerebellum, a series of subroutines sensed the crisis and awoke. Within nanoseconds they opened millions of logic gates that restricted access to the lower levels of her subconscious memory, efficiently draining the data away. It flowed down into the underpinnings of her psychology, each piece seeking out its proper home. Once in place they began overwriting foundational motor skills, responses, instincts, and emotional controls. Eventually everything was recorded, and integration took over. A new set of programs began stitching the replacement components into place and seamlessly binding them to her autonomic systems. They worked carefully, ensuring they didn’t overwrite any of her conscious memories or the delicately laced personality structures that made her who she was. Eventually, their work drew to a close and each program returned to its proper place in her sub-molecular circuitry. A digitized version of normal sleep brainwave patterns arose after she rebooted and then she drifted away into a deep and dreamless state.

Suddenly, and with a quickly repressed start she woke. But it was not a normal waking for her, as she was usually slow to rouse. No, this was triggered by an urgent and overwhelming sensation that she needed to be alert. Her eyes snapped open, and her irises quickly spiraled into a sharpened, predatory focus. She was back in the white room, but not alone. Sheng sat opposite her in an identical lotus position and regarded her calmly with his cool grey eyes.

“Are you well Miss Jessica?“, he asked, with one slightly arched eyebrow.

She instantly punched him in the face.

But this was no ordinary blow. Much of the pent up frustration and fury that had been boiling beneath the surface of her emotions for the last horrific year was expressed in the expertly delivered strike that caught Sheng squarely in the nose. But that rage was only one small contributor to the spectacular results that followed. For hidden deep within the flood of data that he had pushed into Jessica, the AI had included a critical command that reached deeper into her than anything else. Once there, it had switched the interface that controlled her virtual form from simulating that of her old human biology - to mimicking her new cybernetic body.

The effect was beyond staggering and she watched as Sheng was driven into the wall behind him with such force that every bone in his body was pulverized into crumbling gravel. His internal organs exploded and his skull shattered into tiny slivers. The white marble wall behind him caved in over a foot and for a moment the room grew pixelated as he lost control of the environment. Then he slumped to the floor… boneless, pulped, and as dead as a stone.

Jessica was completely stunned by this and sat staring in disbelief for the space of several seconds before bursting into horrified tears. “Sheng?“, she cried as she crawled over to his crumpled form. “Oh God... Sheng! Sheng please be OK... PLEASE, please be OK!?! Oh God, oh God, oh god... I’m so sorry! I... I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry! Please... Oh God PLEASE!” She sobbed and wept as her hands fluttered over his shattered body, trying to think of something she could do to help. But she knew from what she had seen at the bridge that there was no way to bring him back from what she had just done.

“Your concern for me is touching Miss Jessica, but I assure you, it is quite unwarranted.”

She spun to find the source of the voice… and was shocked to see Sheng standing several feet behind her, completely unharmed. “Wait...“, she sputtered. “You were... I… I killed...?”

“Yes”, he replied, “You struck me quite effectively and the result was impressively devastating. But more importantly, the blow was delivered so fast that even I could not evade it and an Embodied soldier in the real world operates at a fraction of the speeds I can simulate here.”

She stared at him open-mouthed for a moment before racing over to tackle him in a rib-cracking hug, “Oh my God Sheng! Oh my God you scared me! I thought you were dead!”

“Miss Jessica… I have never been alive; hence I cannot be dead.”

She pressed her face into his shoulder and continued to hold him tight as she fought back tears and sniffles, “Don’t be an asshole Sheng! You know what I mean.”

The AI surprised himself by putting his hand on her back. As he did he noticed a new sensation arise in his dataflow and after fourteen nanoseconds a new subroutine identified it for him. It was a combination of two emotions... caring and regret.

This was troubling. He was as uncertain of how to handle this sensation as he had been for the others that had developed in his matrix recently. There had been seventeen so far, ranging from amusement and fondness to sadness and anger.

He found them irritating and the way they influenced his decision making was... vexing.

“I am... sorry, Miss Jessica”, he stammered, “I did not realize that witnessing the destruction of my avatar would be so troubling to you. Please… rest assured that I cannot be harmed in any way within this virtual environment. I have no real body. It is completely simulated.”

As if to prove his point, Sheng gestured to where his rag doll corpse had been laying, and Jessica turned to see that it had vanished. The blood, gore, and wall damage were also gone and the room was as pristine as ever

“Holy shit!”

“Yes”, he smiled, “Sanctified feces. Would you be so kind as to release me? You have collapsed the ribcage of this avatar and I would prefer to re-render it in lieu of instantiating a new one.”

Jessica looked down, and realized that she had been hugging Sheng so hard that she had crushed his upper body. “Oh shit.... err.... I… sorry”, she gasped and put him down. He simply nodded in acknowledgment at this and took a deep breath after his chest reconstituted into its original form.

“Sheng”, she asked with a small tilt to her head, “How did I... How did I do that?”

Sheng nodded and smiled as he replied, “You exerted approximately three thousand and eighty-five hundred pounds of force against my ribcage with your... hug.”

“No’, she groaned as she rolled her eyes, “I meant when I hit you.”

“Ah yes. Well, I have adjusted the strength, response times, and other capabilities of your virtual form to match that of your newly reconstructed body. You are now able to deliver a standard arm length punch at approximately four hundred and thirty-seven meters per second, although you may be somewhat quicker at higher altitudes.”

Jessica blinked, “Is... is that fast?”

He nodded as he replied, “Yes, Miss Jessica. According to my database records, the martial artist Bruce Lee executed the fastest arm length punch ever recorded at five hundredths of a second. Yours took place in just under seven hundredths and with some practice you should be able to exceed his record by a significant margin.”

“Oh...”, she whispered, “Wow.”

“You must also bear in mind that you can exert more than one hundred times the power of even the strongest adult human male. So when you struck me, you delivered approximately fourteen thousand foot pounds of pressure to my skull’s glabella and frontonasal structures. If my avatar had not been simulated so closely to human biology, it would have been accelerated to just over five hundred and thirty times the power of gravity. But human bone can only withstand a fraction of that and the remainder was still enough to destroy my body and significantly impact the marble wall behind me.”

Jessica blinked again, “Uh. OK... can you say that again in English? Maybe give me some examples?”

Sheng gave her a small frown, but then narrowed his eyes for a moment before speaking again, “You are capable of punching through fourteen and one half inches of steel plating, or easily bench pressing seventeen thousand two hundred and twenty pounds - roughly the equivalent of a full sized bus.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yes, sanctified fe...”

Jessica cut him off by punching him in the shoulder, “Stop saying that. I’m still mad at you asshole.”

Sheng looked down confusedly at his smashed-in shoulder and dangling arm, “I do not understand.”

“Whatever that was you did HURT Sheng. A lot. Plus, it felt really... icky.“, she replied, clutching her arms to suppress a shiver, “It was like somebody was touching me when I didn’t want them to.”

Sheng furrowed his brow, “Yes Miss Jessica, that was an unfortunate side effect. I attempted to induce the feed during your most recent sleep cycle, but something about the digital brainwave pattern of your dreams interfered. I was forced to induce the feed while you were awake.”

She scowled at him, “You could have just told me... or asked. You didn’t have to be a jerk about it.”

He gave her a short bow, “I apologize Miss Jessica. I was concerned that you might refuse.”

She turned away from him, and the cold hardness that he had first noticed on the southern Australian shoreline returned to her face, “What was all that stuff anyway?”

“It was the extrapolated memory set I created from historical warriors, fighters, and soldiers in my database. The majority of the information was delivered to your subconscious, where it over-wrote your basic motor skills, instincts, reactive behaviors, and physically learned responses. The remainder was written into extra memory registers that are integrated into your long term autonomic systems.”

“Uh, English Sheng?”

He gave her another look, and this time she could have sworn he sighed, “You now have a simulated set of the physical memories of the greatest fighters in history. Your body knows what they knew, and remembers how they moved when they did it.”

“So I can fight like them?”

“Yes”, he replied, “If you empty your mind as I taught you.”

She furrowed her brow, “Why can’t I remember any of it?”

“If I had placed in your conscious memory it is very likely that it would have overwritten many of your own experiences, and significantly altered your personality. I believe you would no longer have been Jessica.”

“Oh... So now what?”

“Now we begin your training again. You will learn to control your new body, and hopefully utilize those memories.”