Chapter No.178. New Plan.

It's like starting over again.

Molly, Alexa and I now realize that we were never human, and that was true for all of the other human-based androids. Our plan to understand what really happened was going to be difficult at best because we had no way to search back through the history of the Phoenix Project. However, that information had to be in the system or at least somewhere.

We decided to suspend the command meetings after our usual communal supper. We decided to allow the classical music and dance ensembles to perform instead. I made up some bogus explanation that we were not at risk anymore, so we didn't require the nightly meetings. In the meantime, Molly, Alexa and I met in the hidden chamber to discuss our plans to determine the truth.

"Okay," Molly said. 'I've been able to find a packet of data in the stacks that is purported to have information about the Phoenix Project, and it indicates that there wasn't such a project."

"You mean that it was a fabrication from the beginning?"

"That's what it means. It appears that much of Space Command was fabricated. I would think it was because of the early reliance on AI to run the conquest of space. Our problem is that we were fabricated and don't really know the true history of the space travel effort."

"This is really crazy," Alexa said. "We are the product of AI trying to understand its deception of the truth."

"The only truth we can effectively rely on is what we know after our waking up on the Explorer-1," Molly said. "What happened before that is essentially unknown."

"Except that we know it had to have a beginning," I said.

"I did find a reference to a machine that was called Colossus. Apparently, it was the considered the ultimate AI computer system."

"Sort of like HAL 9000."

"Yeah, but it was even more sophisticated."

"This sounds a lot like the dystopian science fiction series 'Westworld'. The android like people in that world were essentially run by a central computer system, but they thought of themselves as being human. Apparently, that's what we're doing."

"We should be able to find some reference to the system that was built to create us," Molly said. "Maybe it's still on Earth, or in orbit, or somewhere in space."

I rubbed my jaw. "Yes, that's possible, but it's been a long time since the annihilation event. If it's still in existence, it might have deteriorated to point of being useless."

"Well," Molly said. "I'll try to see if I can scan Earth to see if there is some way to detect it."

"Good idea," I said, gesturing to her.

"Are you going to reveal this new revelation to the others?" Alexa asked.

I looked at her for a moment before replying. "I think it wise not to reveal it, at least not until we have the complete story. It could instigate emotional responses that would upset the collective."

"Yeah, like a revolt," Alexa said.

I nodded. "Exactly. Let's verify it before we release it to the entire collective. I have a lot of questions that are not getting answered. For one thing, why are we the only ones who think we were human. Is this the result of the quantum communication that's hooked to our brains, or is it something in the core processor code?"

"What I would like to know is how could they stuff all of the fabricated memories and personality traits into a computer system way back at the beginning?" Molly asked. "We're the ones that supposedly expanded our computer system to do that sort of thing."

"What I want to know is how they fabricated the missions to Europa, Enceladus and Titan?" I said. "It means that I never went on those missions and Marie didn't go to Titan."

"What it means is that we know nothing about the history that supposedly created us," Alexa said. "I, for one, was never an African American."

"Evidently, none of us are what we thought we were," I said.

There wasn't much more that we could discern by talking so we broke up. The next day when I came onto the command deck, I told Judy to take us back to Earth without any other vessels. My order caused a few odd looks, but no one complained.

When we arrived at Earth, we found an Exploer-2 and three Explorer-1 vessels there guarding it. They didn't question our arrival.

Molly began scans to detect any residual signals from a supercomputer system, but that was going to take some time to discover anything.

I stood up. "Alexa and I are going down to the Huntsville location."

No one questioned our motive for doing that.

We teleported to the location of the underground bunker that was once supposed to be NASA's Huntsville headquarters. A lot of vegetation had grown up around the bunker, making it hard to see. We found dirt and debris in the hole we had dug to enter the bunker. I used my powers to make it fly out of the hole so that Alexa and I could enter through the metal door, which showed a lot more corrosion.

After entering the bunker we activated lamps. It was obvious that no one had been here since we last visited. The room with stasis chambers, the collection of data discs, and a door that we had never entered were intact.

"We went over to the door and Alexa scanned it before I attempted to open it. It required all of my strength to break the door free. I think it was actually welded in place.

We entered the room to find computer equipment, but it was obvious from the dust layer on it that it hadn't been touched in quite some time. Using a sweep of my hand, I made the dust fly off.

"This appears to be intact," Alexa said. "Maybe we could activate it." She went over to the control station and tried to press some buttons, but nothing happened. She turned back to me. "Obviously, it needs a power source."

I looked it over. "This is a Syncatron 5000. I remember them. It needs a fifty-volt direct current power source. I'll create one."

The unit appeared. I went to it and pulled a cord out of it and attached it to a connector on the computer system. After activating the power source, the computer came to life.

Alexa punched some buttons to get a visual screen to light up. It indicated that it needed an activation code.

I went over to where she was. "Let me try this." I typed in a code that consisted of letters, numbers and symbols. Suddenly, the system indicated that we were in.

"How'd you know the passcode?" she asked.

"I don't know. It just popped into my head." That should have been a clue, but I ignored it.

Alexa began a quarry using our names, but it didn't recognize us. After entering the names of our crew, she came up empty.

"I think this thing was used to keep track of missions," Alexa said. She entered Europa, Enceladus and Titan, but the unit replied that no such missions were valid.

"Well," I said. "I think that confirms that those missions never happened."

Alexa typed in Explorer-1 and it came up with information. She searched the crew manifest but found no reference to Molly or me. None of the names were familiar to me.

"I think that this shows that Molly and I never existed."

"That doesn't make sense," Alexa reacted. "You ended up on it."

I shook my head. "Unless we were created during the journey."

"Yeah, that's a possibility."

"The only other possibility is that this data is bogus."

Alexa frowned. "This whole nonsense is bogus."

I had to agree, but we couldn't verify anything from this computer system, and it was obvious that we weren't going to get any more useful information from it.

"I hope this isn't something like your Westworld plot and we're actually living in a completely generated universe," she said.

"I doubt that's the case. In order to generate a compete multiverse, it would require a computer system the size of our solar system. Besides, there should be a way to verify if we're in a computer-generated world."

We returned to the ship and met with Molly that evening in the hidden chamber.

"We didn't find any reference to us being on the Explorer-1 mission and none of our crew's names were in the computer system we found.  Is there a way to determine if we're actually in a computer-generated world?"

She thought about it for a moment before replying. "If we are, the space continuum matrix would be totally in our brains. In other words, what we see, hear and experience does not actually exist. If that were the case, we should be able to locate the source of that in the quantum energy fields."

"Yes, but how would you know that what you discover is real?" I asked.

"I'll block the signal. If it's generating the world in our brains, we would know it right away."

I rubbed my jaw. "Okay, Let's do it."

What happened next was very interesting.