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Fulgur didn’t pick up the fountain pen he had been writing diligently with after the professor left.
He stared at his notebook, fists clenched as the words he had uttered in response to the Martyrist’s analogy of an I’mprint’s existence reverberated in his head.
He chuckled at first, lifting an arm to sling over his eyes, blocking out the sight of his monitor screens and the computer. His shoulders started to shake, but the sounds coming out of his mouth were mirthless and hollow. He laughed harder. And slammed his fist into the wall next to him.
The room was silent again, save for the gentle whirring of the computer fans, as though Fulgur didn’t just lose his composure. The room seemed to contract around him and flicker for half a second, but otherwise his Duoverse showed no implication of effect from his small outburst. It raised his hackles and he wanted to swing another punch. The actual wall in the concrete box he resides could withstand another punch from a Legatus anyways.
“I see them more as echoes. A reflection of the original that is almost the same, but not quite. They deteriorate with time and eventually need to be shut down for their own good.”
Fulgur meant it of course.
In most, if not all of the I’mprint related cases he took in the past two years, including the case he took earlier today, it showed him that an AI version of a person will remain a weak artificial clone of the original. It would never fully become a whole complete replica.
Because that's just how an I’mprint is.
Limited to only the most recent memory and thoughts of its creator and sibling, it can only continue the thought process of its predecessor. Nothing of the past is archived in the newly risen thinking entity and nothing that it owns on its skin is wholly theirs either. At least, that’s the case for Dana the I’mprint.
It doesn’t help that these digitally coded forms of the human consciousness must always remember that they are I’mprints.
The reminder of the procedure – like witnessing the creation of Eve with the rib of Adam – that copied and transferred the one thing that determines one’s existence in the universe replaying in their hollow husk of steel. Reminding the consciousness of the familiarity between them and the state of the world; toxic waste and air eroding the land while buildings continued to stand erect, their images flickering like a television switching between channels as one scoured through the DV modding site.
Because if it didn’t realize it from the beginning, they would lash out at whoever dared to challenge the authenticity of their existence like fire in the hole.
Eventually I’mprints who followed the procedure and booted up accordingly will still be shut down for good.
Because time is an unforgiving mistress. Just like how the hills and greenery eroded down to dust, the mind deteriorates as well. I’mprints, cradled in the arms of time, would change their purpose down the road. Thus led astray from the path it was created in the first place. The memory of a human consciousness preserved in a safe haven rather than a pathetic humanoid blob of dull gray, as though the Creator God had tossed spare clay over his shoulder and called it a day.
Fulgur thought eternal prison would be more fitting.
He shuddered as he recalled the recurring dream that plagues him ever so often. He had never told the professor about the fading image of a boy too small, lying on top of bleached pillows with pink limbs ballooned stuck closely to his sides. The brown eyes were just as dull as the remnants of fresh dirt. Fading away but not as fast as the female figure who walked out into the open, leaving the gray walls and the only proof of her existence lying on a bed. Fulgur watched on and repeated the words that he had committed to heart by now.
“We’ll get through this together.”
He blinked, removing his fist from the wall and ignored the dust falling off from the metal. If he turned to look, the smooth pristine gray walls would be all he saw and there wasn’t a point in examining the result of his strength. Instead, he stood and looked towards the windows lined across his room. The dark tint and the night sky of the DV mod he had chosen reflected back the stark red metal plates forming his limbs, contrasting his pale skin.
What about him? He had woken up in a body older than he was used to and the feeling in his limbs changed. They didn't feel like thick winter clothing hugging his skin while fire threatened to consume even his bones. His arms and legs felt like an extension of himself rather than attached with wires and nerves.
There was no man with light blue eyes sitting at the end of the bed this time. The doorway remained empty.
Fulgur watched himself grow while he was in the Legion. His cheeks lost fat. His chest grew more firm. His cyborg parts were replaced to fit his growing body proportionally.
His thought process recoded itself according to the teachings from praetores too. He couldn't remember what shame felt like. Was this what life before being human was like? Was he considered pure the more his emotions got purged?
Could he ever be considered a pure human if he had not been entirely human at all?
Fulgur knew what the dream meant. He was a reflection of a boy who couldn't make it through this world. He was the last remaining evidence of a family who didn't got through it together. Yet, he was sure that he was capable of growing. He wasn't a corpse of steel masquerading as a human.
Or maybe he, like Dana the I'mprint, had gotten his physical form ingrained in him so hard, he believed he possessed human traits. Its easier to think he wasn't human and was indeed parading around with a human visage.
Even as he doubted, therefore he is. Fulgur hated this. As he stared at his reflection, there was an expression in his face that he couldn't describe.
Did he deserve to think of himself as the same boy who was saved by the professor?
Who exactly is he then? Fulgur, the boy who survived? Or Fulgur, the cyborg with a conscious?
He could feel the wretched thoughts clawing through his mind, words repeating and overlapping into a jargon as he pulled at his hair.
Is his hair made of tough protein and DNA or is it synthetic plastic?
The thing reared its head and its mouth seemed to split open wider. Noises echoed louder and Fulgur registered the words. He also realized the voice sounded too much like his own, and you dont exist you are not youdont exist youarenot youdontexist areyouyou dont exist notyou–
Fulgur slammed his head into the concrete wall with a shout.
x i st
He continued bashing his head into the wall until his skin turned purple and blue in patches. Until the spot where his head met the wall caved in. Until his skin split open and crimson ichor ran down the bridge of his nose. Until he feared splitting open his skull.
Fulgur heaved, turning around to lean his weight upon the wall as he raised a shaky hand to his forehead. He pressed and found relief in the way he winced. His breathing slowed to a normal pace again when his hand pulled back wet with red stains. He could smell the sickly iron and licked his lips to taste it too.
Pain made him human. For as long as he can feel pain, undoubtedly, he existed. The human touch and feeling, were the senses that technology could replicate.
Fulgur believed that there were times when fear wasn't not the enemy and need not be eradicated from the Auxilia. There were times when fear was his truest, sometimes only, friend.
And borned from his desire to cement his placement below the stars, he would soon be half in love with death. Fulgur would find death insatiable and stand firm in its ever looming figure to embrace and feel pain from all that it touched.
He – the consciousness named Fulgur Ovid – not the Duotar Legatus 505, existed right now and back then. The other entity in him had fallen silent already, slithered back to whatever hole it had discovered its sentience.
Fulgur laughed, but it didn’t sound like a celebration. His voice wobbled; more of a gasp. He turned his head towards the red plant hanging above his desk.
Amaranthus caudatus. That was the name of the annual flowering plant before the Doomers fucked it all for the next generation and the generations following after. No amount of science and technology modernisation provided in history could reverse the effects.
Hopelessness. That is the meaning of the flowers. That is the word one would describe someone in the years of ATF who still held onto a naive ambition of undoing the impossible. That is the word Fulgur uses to label the predicament of I’mprints such as himself. But was it so bad to desire to be more than just a cup to hold–
No, those are not his thoughts. He heard a click of a tongue and nothing more again. Maybe one day Fulgur would come to a compromise with his other aspect, but for now he was a selfish man.
If given the chance, he would gladly be the messiah who freed the clones of consciousness from their steel coffins. It was easier for them to not think about their existence more than they should.
~
Fulgur Ovid sucked a breath through his teeth and exhaled with a puff. He closed the worn notebook he had been reading and thumbed at the dog-eared corners. There were still more pages to read through, to remember and keep from losing his identity. But for today, it was enough.
He reached out to his monitor screen, as though to wave it to life like he had in the timeline he unintentionally left behind. He dropped his hand to tap on the keyboard. His scheduled stream for the day was about to start.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal sheep.
(He would make sure to leave a mark of his existence in this timeline this time.)