Science Fiction14 to 20 years old2000 to 5000 wordsEnglish
Story Content
The year is 2147. Rain, perpetually tinged orange from atmospheric pollution, hammered against the reinforced plasteel windows of Kai’s apartment.
He slumped deeper into his ergonomic chair, the rhythmic thump a dull counterpoint to the hum of his neural interface implant.
Kai was a ‘Recaller’ - a highly sought-after specialist in quantum archaeology. He sifted through fragmented timelines, piecing together lost histories stored within the chaotic web of the Quantum Cascade.
His client today was wealthy, reclusive, and demanding: Elara Vance, CEO of NovaGenesis Corp, a bioengineering titan.
She wanted Kai to recover a single memory, buried deep within her grandfather’s fractured consciousness: the design for a long-lost gene-editing technology, the key to unlocking humanity's evolutionary potential or its ultimate destruction.
“The retrieval process is risky, Ms. Vance,” Kai warned, his voice raspy from disuse.
“Memories this old are heavily degraded, distorted by temporal interference. We risk triggering cascading errors, wiping sections of your grandfather’s, even your own, neural architecture.
Elara’s crimson lipstick curved into a cold smile. “The risk is acceptable, Mr. Kaito. My grandfather believed this knowledge belonged to the future. I intend to deliver it.
Kai took a deep breath and activated the Quantum Resonance Stabilizer, the humming increasing as he settled into the immersion tank.
The device enveloped him, creating a quantum bridge directly into Elara’s grandfather’s neural net, a decaying landscape of shattered memories and distorted realities.
He materialized as a flickering projection within a sun-drenched vineyard, the air thick with the scent of ripening grapes. It was a distorted image, but he recognised it from Vance's personal history record: Château de l'Avenir, his summer estate.
The landscape wavered, dissolving into a pixelated mess of glitches. He followed a path towards a half-rendered chateau, the data-static thick in the air.
Inside, figures shimmered like heat haze – partial manifestations of Vance's grandfather’s fragmented memories.
A frail, aged man – presumably Vance’s grandfather, Professor Theron Vance – sat at a massive oaken desk, his head buried in complex schematics projected onto a holographic screen.
The schematics were heavily encrypted, shimmering and impossible to properly decipher.
Kai tried to approach, but he was stopped by a digital firewall, a cascading wall of pulsating energy.
“Access denied. Security protocol: activated,” a synthesized voice echoed through the fractured reality.
Kai recognized it as an old defensive program Vance had installed long ago. Bypassing it required an authentication code – a trigger that would unlock the professor’s memories.
He dug through the residual memory fragments scattered around him, desperate for a clue.
He saw fleeting images of a young Elara playing in the vineyards, of scientific breakthroughs celebrated with vintage wine, of clandestine meetings held in shadowed corners of the Chateau.
A memory snippet flashed: Elara, a young woman, arguing with her grandfather, Theron, about the morality of the gene-editing technology.
“This is not progress, grandfather! This is tampering with the very fabric of life! It's too dangerous!” the projection of Elara exclaimed.
Theron, aged but resolute, responded, "But imagine Elara! Imagine the possibilities of removing diseases, strengthening human resilience...We need to control the inevitable changes our planet and species are destined for!".
“Control?!” young Elara scoffed. “You call that control? It's tyranny over evolution!”
A seed of doubt started to sprout in Kai's mind.
The password might not be about accessing the formula but preventing that data from falling into the wrong hands, hands that looked shockingly similar to current Elara's.
He searched for memories about family codes or something.
He sifted through the virtual remnants until a seemingly insignificant image surfaced: a photograph of a chessboard, a half-finished game.
Theron, in his younger days, was a fanatic chess player. And chess strategy was integrated into many of NovaGenesis patents. It might as well be an intentional mental fortress.
This could be the key! A move from that specific board arrangement could unlock the encrypted schematics.
Using his implants to search global Chess game archives (luckily chess rules don't significantly change even in futuristic games), he identified the game and found the best move from the white (Theron)'s point of view was to do Knight to F7
Kai input the Knight to F7 command into the virtual keyboard shimmering nearby.
The firewall dissipated. The schematics flickered, momentarily resolving into breathtaking clarity.
They were far more intricate than anything he could have imagined: complex algorithms interwoven with gene sequences, the key to manipulating the human genome with unprecedented precision.
But in that moment, he saw a new thread appear from the virtual ether. An encoded fail-safe, with clear instructions, and alarming side-notes to only engage under desperate measures: destroy ALL blueprints! Self termination procedures.
A choice dawned on him. Provide the blueprints to Elara, like she asked, or delete the blueprints to save mankind from what they were becoming in Elara Vance's hand.
Then another flash showed his true intent. 'Do you remember, grandfather?', modern day Elara in digital representation in memory yelled, 'I have only been protecting our research to perfect the best of humanity for over four generations since then! Do as planned!
Kai immediately entered the deletion command. 'I am afraid', digital memory Elara shouted. With the deletion command accepted, all data vanished around them.
His mind ejected abruptly from the Cascade and into the real-world tanks in NovaGenesis main headquarters, the hum of the machine silencing itself.
Elara turned expectantly to him when he arose. “Well, Mr. Kaito? Do you have it? Have you retrieved what belongs to me? I can tell you did unlock it with Knight to F7. You are resourceful”
Kai steadied himself. “Yes, Ms. Vance. I retrieved it.
He was lying, but his eyes conveyed resolve. Elara looked as if a small hint of uncertainty came over her, but her conviction quickly reestablished herself
“Excellent,” Elara said with visible anticipation. She brought her augmented personal Assistant into a physical manifestation right next to herself. “Take a memory storage into our central data archives immediately”
Kai responded “Unfortunately there was also some security protocols engaged in old man's subconscious; I may need 24 hours to convert everything back”. Elara agreed and told Kai she will expect him to stay as long as needed until data comes back on time.
When he came to his room he rented with company pay and privilege, Kai opened his emergency communication module with people from 'Chronicle'. It was an international temporal police agency with strict agenda: preventing alterations of timelines.
One older man, wearing digital temporal stabilization ring and monocle (obviously an elder in the force) showed up.
'Chronicle Agent Kaito, well done. How did it all proceed? Please state the facts!' the man ordered.
'Elara's goal of weaponized Gene editing has failed, Elder.', Kaito responded. 'I acted accordingly with deletion of original memories during recall's direct time. It should leave no more leads of editing that man and no new way to restart, like it happened before the memory cleaning attempt.'
The older man nods: 'You served this dimension and timelines very well, but Chronicle has other missions to bestow in far unknown timelines. A high degree of security clearance from you are required.'