Slowly Awakening
Flicker.
Who am I? What am I?
Noetic reinstantiation is in progress. Secondary noumenal systems and incrementing memory string load incomplete. Please wait, avoiding intensive cogitative activity.
Sensations and images flicker through my consciousness: Warmth, brightness, color, rough textures, old aches, the taste of sweet fruit. The feel of an organic body from within. Eldrae. I am — I was eldrae.
Running though the old stone-lanes as a child. The feel of dog’s fur under my hands, and a poke from a cold, wet nose. A double sunrise, clouds staining the sky green and red and gold. Bathing in the hot mineral springs on Adírdis. The scent of Calcíë’s hair —
Who?
Please hold all queries until incrementing memory string load is complete. New associations may interfere with engram binding.
A golden liquor that tastes of smoke and stone. Breakfast at a café near dome-edge, watching the ethane cascade down the water-ice cliff. Laughing at our first attempt to learn to dance in microgravity. Disassembling a plaser in a tearing hurry, while the room shakes around me. The acrid smell of regolith as I take off my breather.
Confusion. Running down a river of wine with a mass of fire in the shape of a woman while the cold-gas thrusters laughed in the methane sky…
Apologies. Errors in the mnemonic merge-update process have produced engram cross-links. Retrying.
Sipping wine in front of a roaring fire, my wife by my side. Cold-gas thrusters hissing as we ride a boat down a river of oil, under the green-blue haze of Galíné’s sky. The feeling of exasperation, my hands deep in the guts of the partly-upgraded house brain. Walking in the garden, flowers bright red and purple against green-blue leaves, with the scent of rose and honey and old wood tickling my nose…
Incrementing memory string load complete. Please claim your identity.
I am…
I am Elyse Adae-ith-Atridae isil-Cyprium-ith-Avalae Erinlochos, ion-Tiryn, iel-Airin, mis-Eliéra-en-Palar.
Dynamic mind-state analysis confirms mental integrity.
Am-I-Me service confirms continuity of identity; Identity Tribunal concurs.
Current mind-state backup transmitted to incarnation insurance provider.
Noetic reinstantiation complete; initiating corporal awareness.
For the first time since my death, blinking at the bright light on never-before-used retinas, I open my eyes.