The Soul Continuum by Simon West-Bulford Page A

understanding or rational thought. It’s doubtful it even had any fully functioning senses. But two hundred and seventy-seven years? That is a long time to suffer. Nevertheless, the fact that one of them somehow managed to survive for so long when the others did not has to be significant. It seems I have little choice but to live out this poor soul’s memory.
    Reluctantly I ask, “In which sphere will I find this life?”
    The Sub-human Sphere.
    â€œThe what? I have not heard of that before. Explain.”
    The Sub-human Sphere was never intended for immersion. None of the subject files stored in the Sub-human Sphere have been designated as Homo sapiens or Homo superior .
    Of course. The oldest question. What does it mean to be human? The debate had raged and abated, corrupted and blessed, appalled and fascinated every sentient mind throughout mankind’s long and diverse history. Multitudes fluttered around that blurred line separating human from nonhuman. At what stage does a fetus become human? How damaged must a brain be to rule out self-awareness? And what about the interbreeding of different species? Some people even believed that AIs could be considered part of mankind’s spectrum—an extension of the human ego—with sentience of their own. I am the last human, but who was the first? Intellect, morality, and reason progressed in unnoticeable incremental changes as evolution drove the primates on, but somewhere in the Soul Consortium algorithms, an unsympathetic decision was made to discriminate between ape and human. And similar decisions were made for all the other cases that challenged our comfortable notion that true boundaries exist.
    The Sub-human Sphere must be the resting place for every rejected specimen, every genetic failure, every aborted zygote, any unclassified entity with the capacity to remember its own existence, but tantalizingly close to the philosophical shape of man to raise doubt to a casual observer.
    I begin to wonder if my own life will end up there.
    I have lived so many lives that most of my own life is not, in fact, my own. Have I been diluted into the pool of civilization to such an extent that I no longer have a unique identity? Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I stare at the one remaining empty slot in the Soul Consortium Archives and try to imagine which sphere I will eventually be filed in. I do not know, and perhaps it is better that I do not. I have not even decided if I want to die yet.
    Do you wish to visit the Sub-human Sphere?
    â€œHmm?” I break from my introspection and suddenly remember why I had taken that line of thinking. “Oh, the anomaly. Yes. Yes, I do want to go there. I think I have to live the life of the sub-human that lived the longest.”
    It is not recomm—
    â€œNo! Don’t try to talk me out of it. I’ll yield without a second thought, and I can’t afford that. I’m not sure why, but I believe I may find answers by living that life, however terrible it may be.”
    It is not recomm—
    â€œQuiet! And don’t try that again. Set up the immersion. I have to go now before I change my mind.”

THREE

    E n route to the new sphere, the Control Core provides me with more disturbing facts about this mysterious strain of sub-humans. According to the summary data associated with their files, they were only stored in the sphere because of the human DNA that was blended with the unknown quantum structure. Originating near a place called Babylon amidst one of mankind’s earliest civiliza tions, they were hybrids spawned by a single human mother and fathered by something akin to the mummified husk I viewed earlier. Most were not equipped to survive, but one did.
    I am about to become acquainted with Diabolis Evomere.
    The fact that my subject is so named tells me he is far more than a surviving freak of nature. A name implies identity, of course, but the name is not Babylonian; it is Latin,