Ean scanned the room. It was a Clean room. He was alone in the dust-free environment with a computer terminal to which he was still mated. Ean freed himself from the terminal. The room's white walls did not give Ean a clue as to his location. He could be in Hong Kong or in Germany -- no clue.
No one entered the room. It was only a matter of time before he was discovered. How would he explain his presence? Hi, I'm the founder and creator of VRAINET. I downloaded my brain years ago, but can't seem to re-establish contact with my body. Which way to Nevada? The more Ean thought about it, the less he believed himself.
He didn't think it would be a good idea to let anyone know who he was anyway. Ean's widely published beliefs of the importance of manned space exploration had not been accepted with enthusiasm.
Actually, he had been silenced and censored by the government -- the same government which later cancelled the last token moon base. If Ean hadn't dropped out of sight as quickly as he had, he probably would have been killed.
He hadn't been able to download himself into his body so it seemed that the computer chose a robot with enough memory to hold Ean's mind. It was the only computer brain to which the Virtual Reality Artificial Intelligence NETwork had been linked to capable of supporting Ean.
I need to find myself a different network to link up with, is what Ean would have said to himself had the robotic body's speakers been working.
The form Ean found himself in appeared to be that of a technician robot. It wasn't much different in form than a five-foot-tall arachnid. The robot had lost one of its six walking appendages. It moved with an obvious lunging motion in an effort to compensate for its missing limb. Luckily those were all automated functions that Ean did not need to worry about in much detail; Ean himself was awkward on two legs.
He put his temporary body through a self-diagnostic mode. It seemed to have only a few of its sensors working. One was a camera through which Ean focused his thoughts. Sanity could easily be lost when one was not in an android-type robotic body. The camera was the only sense remotely similar to a human body's senses. He felt remote. The world was an interactive television. Ean clung to the camera's input as if his humanity depended upon it.
He found his way out of the clean room into a windowless hallway. He chose a direction randomly and started in his long slow lurch down the hall. He thought of his life in VRAINET. It had been quite a long time since he had been back here in the real world. Earth. Most people in VRAINET, or on VRAINET as they always corrected him, had never heard of Earth. When he spoke of Earth there, Ean always told his friends that Earth was a small fishing village in the north and of little significance to them or anyone.
Most had not asked further about his home. His contempt for Earth and anyone from Earth was never concealed. Luckily, he was the only person from Earth in VRAINET.
Ahead in the dim corridor was a single window. Moonlight seemed to be pouring through. Ean had seen no one in the building as of yet, but movement on the window ledge caught his attention. It was a bird; a rather large one. Ean came to a stop in front of the window and looked the bird over. It in turn looked Ean's robotic form over as one with intimate knowledge of him.
It appeared to be a raven. The purple sheen of its black feathers was visible in the poor light. It stood in its majesty on the ledge. Death -- Ean's only true nemesis -- and here its embodiment. Ean had beaten Death. His body was safely hibernating in Elko. He would never die.
The raven leaned down and pecked Ean's camera eye, chipping a corner of the lens. Ean swatted at the bird, which then flew down the corridor in the direction that Ean was traveling. He watched it go, noting that his camera eye did not appear to be damaged.
He peered out the window in hopes of discovering his location. It was clearly some immense city. Ean himself was above it, on some high level of a sky scraper. Brilliantly lit buildings of every shape and size stretched out into the distance ending at the outline of what appeared to be a distant mountain range.
Perhaps Ean had downloaded himself into Salt Lake City. he had never been there before. He had heard that it was located in a valley surrounded by mountains. It must have grown since Ean had placed himself in VRAINET. This city was obviously home to many millions of people.
He followed the brilliant outline of one of the buildings skyward. It looked to be about 250 stories in height. Above it a shining orb dominated the cloudless night sky. Its luster far surpassed that of the stars. The orb was Earth.
Shock set in. It took several hours for Ean to come to himself. Nothing like this city had been dreamed of in Ean's time. How long had he been hiding in VRAINET?
The date/time circuits in the tech bot's brain would only feed out random numbers. Ean would have to find an outside source for the year and day. He continued his staggering advance down the hall turning corners, riding elevators, escalators, and exploring everything from houses to libraries. The city was empty and completely automated. It mourned in sullen loneliness under Earth's pale midnight light. Ean saw no humans. He did find the time, though. It had been six hundred years since Ean had entered VRAINET.
In what might be considered the city center, Ean found a monument. The inscription read, "To those whom we owe our destiny." Ean found his name to be one of over 500 names on the monument. It listed his dates of birth and death.
He felt uncomfortable with this, to say the least. He felt very much alive. Life is more than a body, he thought to himself.
In the lunar libraries, Ean found two biographies of his life. Although he disagreed with their insights, they were somewhat accurate. They told him that an electrical failure had destroyed his body three years after it had been placed in storage. It was thought to have been due to human failure. Ean felt strangely relieved.
Ean found his way back to the monument. The raven sat perched upon it. Ean stood there and looked past it, gazing at the Earth and stars for many hours. Humans had left Earth and its moon. Ean hadn't foreseen this happening, but it felt good. With maturity comes a desire for independence.
Ean activated the tech robot's memory sweep and it automatically initialized the robot's RAM. If humankind had ever come back to Earth and its moon, perhaps it would have noticed a well worn tech robot with a faulty memory sweep lying in front of an ancient monument. If they had so desired they could have accessed the robot's last thoughts, which it had failed to erase.
I would not stop for Death, so politely he waited for me.