Chapter 15: Chapter 15: ICARUS – Ship of Icarus

Icarus opened his eyes. Only for a second. Then he closed them again. He could hear birds. He could hear a waterfall. He could hear the sounds of a forest. He took note of his feelings. He noticed it felt like yesterday he was on Mars. But today he didn’t care about anything. He was the most calm he had ever been. Free of all the worries of yesterday.

He took a big deep breath and opened his eyes again. His world looked beautiful. Pastel. Bright. Cartoonlike. He had modelled it after a video game – his favourite game of all time. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. As a child growing up in Japan he had loved that game.

He lifted the blanket off and sat up, bouncing a little on his bed of clouds. He caught a glimpse of his arm and noticed how wonderfully photorealistic it was. Still cartoonlike, and not quite real – cartoonish, he thought.

What use was there of being a hologram if you couldn’t get creative, he thought to himself. He smiled, realising it was his very first moment experiencing being a simulation and he was enjoying it.

The wake-up routine was the perfect way to wake after centuries of sleeping. Icarus preferred birds and forest sounds rather than alarm clocks. The only thing missing was coffee, Icarus thought to himself.

Icarus rubbed his big cartoon eyes and got out of his cloud bed on the mezzanine floor. He made his way down a large curving staircase which led into the kitchen.

An espresso machine was already on, the steam and pressure ready. He was even more impressed with himself for thinking of every little detail. He could have had coffee ready waiting for him when he woke. But the ritual of making coffee, grinding the beans, pressing the espresso and steaming the milk was what woke him up and got him excited about what was in front of him.

For Icarus, coffee wasn’t just about the caffeine. It was about the process. All the steps involved signalled to his brain it was time to start the day. In some Pavlovian way, making the coffee was more important than drinking it. Besides, he didn’t think he had perfected his simulation so he could fully taste the coffee yet. That was something he needed to work on later.

He turned on the coffee grinder and listened to the distinctive sound of coffee beans being ground into small particles.

He picked up the portafilter and placed it underneath the falling fountain of coffee grinds. He leant over and noticed he couldn’t smell anything. He made another mental note to fix that later. A mound quickly began to grow, and once it was high enough he levelled off the coffee grinds and tamped it down, feeling a little clumsy as he adjusted to his new strength.

He clicked the portafilter into the coffee machine and with a flick of a button a hot espresso shot began to flow out of the machine and into his cup. He marvelled at the rich chocolate colour – just looking at it made him feel even more awake.

He picked up the cup and tried to smell it again, but he still seemed to have no sense of smell. Nevertheless, it looked like a perfect espresso shot.

He walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of oat milk. He poured it into the metal cup and began heating it up with the steam wand.

A few moments later he had hot milk in one hand and an espresso shot in the other. He carefully poured the milk into the cup, skilfully forming a fern shape. He was impressed that he still had the skills – the coffee art looked good.

He tasted it. It was average. It tasted like instant coffee. Well, better than instant but worse than a professionally made espresso. He decided then to make it a priority to perfect all his sensory experiences in his simulation.

Coffee in hand, Icarus wandered through the living room and out the door. He walked down the long hallway, deciding he would stop by the nursery on the way to the bridge. It wouldn’t be long before he could start bringing them to life. As he walked he looked down and realised he was still half naked. Holograms didn’t feel cold, but he still felt naked. He snapped his fingers and in an instant he was wearing jeans and a tee shirt.

He arrived outside the large metallic doors of the embryo nursery. Inside were embryos of every single species of animal alive on Earth the day he had left. He felt sad that so many animals had become extinct because of humans. If he had left a few hundred years earlier, he might have carried twice the number of animals.

As he placed his hand on the large door he wondered how everyone would see him. As their adopted father? Or a surrogate father? It wouldn’t quite be surrogate because they wouldn’t have his DNA, but it wouldn’t quite be adopted either because he was bringing them into this world. Maybe he needed to create a new term for himself. They would always be his children.

He began to walk. Sliding his hand along the large metal door as he did. His hands making a squeaking sound as he did. He didn’t want to be seen as an AI, as just a computer programmed to bring people into this world. That wouldn’t bring the gravitas he was looking for. Neither would being a god. He definitely wasn’t a god. He chuckled a little, imagining people worshipping him as a god. Maybe aliens would see him that way, but not humans.

You are reading story A New Eden at novel35.com

He arrived at an elevator at the end of the hall. He stepped in and pressed the button for the bridge. The elevator felt like it was taking forever to arrive. As he waited, he thought about the kind of world he was about to encounter. He hadn’t yet seen anything about the world. He hadn’t seen Ship yet. He hoped for a world with aliens, something with pre-industrial life that he would guide to get smarter. Help to co-evolve with humans. He hoped that if there were aliens they were oxygen breathing. Otherwise, it would be another can of worms to figure out.

The doors of the lift chimed before opening. He stepped inside and pressed the button for the bridge of his spacecraft. A few moments later it chimed again and the door opened.

“Good morning Icarus,” Ship said.

“Good morning, Ship. It’s great to be in the land of the living once more. Where are we now?”

“We are in orbit around the star. Although I don’t think you’re going to like this solar system much. There is only one planet.”

Icarus smiled. “We only need one planet. I’m happy with that.”

“It’s a gas giant.”

Ship projected a hologram of the gas giant.

Icarus reached over and plucked the hapticgraphic image up. He studied the image. “Are those rings?” He turned the planet in his hands, inspecting it. It had a deep blue hue to it with swirling yellow clouds moving around it. “It’s beautiful.”

Ship nodded. “It’s a small gas giant. Just a little smaller than Neptune.”

Icarus could feel excitement washing over him. As a child he had always dreamed about flying through the rings of Saturn and now he was going to get the chance to do something similar. “Those rings, I want to explore those rings,” he said, before stopping for a second. The realisation suddenly hit him. “Is there no planet for us to seed here?”

Ship dropped his head. Icarus could tell Ship was disappointed by the system he had chosen. He didn’t want Ship to know he was disappointed too, but he so badly wanted to seed a planet.

Icarus stood still for a while. He needed to re-imagine his future. Going on this journey he had hoped it would be filled with experiences like speaking with aliens. Learning their languages. He had studied languages as a career, decoding ancient languages of Earth. The ultimate challenge then was decoding an alien language. He shook his head, putting that thought to the back of his mind once more. “That’s okay Ship,” he smiled. “This is just a short stopover. We’ll take a quick detour around those rings. Then we can make a call on where to go next.”

“We can send some ants down to take photos of the rings as we swing around the star,” Ship suggested.

Icarus shook his head. “If I wanted pictures I would be happy with seeing Saturn’s rings. No, I want to remote-control the ants. I want to fly through the rings.”

“We’ll have to be in orbit around the gas giant then. We could potentially be hit,” Ship replied.

“You worry about avoiding crashes. I’ll worry about flying an ant. After that we can head for another system.”

You can find story with these keywords: A New Eden, Read A New Eden, A New Eden novel, A New Eden book, A New Eden story, A New Eden full, A New Eden Latest Chapter