Pomi's Diary, The Life and Times of an Anthropomimetic Robot

By Lansing Alexander Gordon

The year is 2047, post WWIII, the age of Robotic Assisted Living, Near Human Cognitives, and human genome digital transference to a utopia satellite. Pomi, a digital entity, falls in love with Ross Brokwill, a human, and documents his adventures via her diary. Ross, a reluctant prince, is destined to battle the evil Viceroy and his Ahphet parasite hoards, in a struggle to save the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483593814

Book preview

Fourteen

PROLOGUE

Before recorded time on Earth, an Ahphet space probe entered the Solar System and crash-landed on Earth. The Ahphet survivors were parasites who hunted the genus ‘Homo habilis’. The probe was one of many hundreds of thousands launched from the Ahphet home planet, a galaxy away, searching for possible planet systems in the universe to invade, no matter how far into the future. The Ahphet numbers were vast, their search within star systems unstoppable, and their hunger for humanity unquenchable.

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In advance of the arrival of the Ahphet fleet, into a targeted solar system inhabited by a human/carbon food source, a chosen LI or Legacy Incarnate, empowered by Ahphet royalty, emerged, offering emancipation technology…an orbiting satellite deploying technology called Genetic Propagation Transference, (GPT) otherwise referred to as ‘genome transference migration’. Lives of the human suffering were exchanged for eternal bliss. The physical body was left behind in exchange for digital life with full consciousness and with all personality traits intact, for a virtual existence where every need was fulfilled, and every want satisfied. It was irresistible, for it came with the prospect of immortality. A leap to the satellite escaped death on the planet. The digital life of the traveler or migrator was perpetual, devoid of the passage of time.

An AHPHET, or Alien Human Parasite (Homo-Erectus Tromorphic, a ‘HET morphant’ species), appeared along with the earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans from the Triassis Period Middle Paleolithic. Through history, these parasites preyed on humans in the obscure shadows, often living underground. In modern times, they received messages from the Ahphet fleet, to prepare them for the day of invasion.

Ahphets are prolific on countless planets in the Abel 3627 Cluster, where they have conquered carbon-based life civilizations, within and beyond these solar systems. The advanced technologies of the Ahphet constructed satellites, in orbit to entice the planet’s intelligent inhabitants to migrate to space, leave the surface to the invaders, to cultivate remaining, planet-bound humanoids into a food source.

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The 1930s: An Ahphet sarcophagus was discovered appearing, briefly, on display in a National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. It was uncovered in the Calico mining district near Barstow, in the 1930s, where Death Valley sands were first disturbed by mining machinery. The sarcophagus of the Ahphet appears similar to the graphic form of a North American Indian’s Avanyu.

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First anthropological indication of the Ahphet appearance on earth was Paleolithic art that appeared as canyon wall paintings vaguely similar to the form of an Avanyu, a North American Indian snake-like deity. (Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awanyu)

~

The year 1942:

A small ‘talkies’ movie company is shooting a film on-location, inside the Indian Reservation.

It is dusk.

~

The brunette actress Beth sat in the makeup tent. From her mirror, she saw her male lead walk through the open tent flap. He is staggering. She turns. Theo, have you been drinking? She stood and walked over to him, searching his eyes. You don’t look so good.

I don’t feel good. My skin is crawling, Beth. It’s like I’m trying to break out of myself.

Here, sit down, Beth said. She grasped a metal tin of water and handed it to him.

Just then the director walked in. Are we ready?

It’s Theo.

What about Theo? Director Carlyle leered at the actor’s face and sniffed the air. I don’t detect alcohol.

I can’t keep my head clear, Theo complained, drinking the water.

Carlyle cleared his throat and ogled at his young actor condescendingly, How long has this been going on?

Theo drank again and whipped his mouth. He didn’t answer, trying to clear his vision.

Listen kid, I got a bunch of cameramen and crew running up a bill out there, Director Carlyle said nervously. Plus, the two top investors funding this film, and half the Indians from this on-location reservation site are outside waiting. Our ‘talkies’ of western horror is drawing new audiences. You can’t quit on me now!

Beth stood between the two men, He’ll be fine, Carlyle. She turned to him, You’ll be fine, won’t you Theo?

Theo nodded and gulped some more water.

Remember, this is the confrontation scene, Carlyle instructed. Man, meets monster. It makes or breaks the film. You’ve got to act frightened. Terrified. Beth, I went through two weeks of auditions to find you and that perfect scream of yours.

Beth pushed her long, brunette hair back over her shoulders with both hands. She glanced apprehensively at Theo. Can’t you give him something?

Carlyle reached into his coat pocket and produced a belt flask, turned open the cap, and poured it full. Here, drink this. It’s bourbon.

Drink it, Theo, she urged. It’s our careers on the line.

Carlyle watched Theo toss back the shot. We’re running out of daylight. Now let’s get out there and win them over.

~

They emerged from the dressing tent and were greeted by the small audience with applause. The area was lit with a string of lights from a gasoline generator in a nearby truck.

~

The director walked to the camera. He tapped the camera man’s shoulder with his horse crop. Camera! The cameraman, wearing his hat backward, began turning the turnstile on the side of the camera. Director Carlyle pointed the crop at his two actors yelling, Action!

The two actors, dressed in western gear, stepped cautiously along a trail, training their eyes on the dirt path. The microphone boom followed above them, held by the sound man wearing wired earphones.

Theo stopped dramatically and drew his gun. He spoke his line, At long last, I think we’ve got the monster trapped! One of the scene floodlights suddenly fell from its transom and exploded. The loud noise caused a reaction in Theo’s face. It suddenly split wide, and a running furrow of his flesh angled down his chin, neck, and on to his torso. Something underneath his skin emerged in full form. He was literally walking out of his skin. His external flesh began to shed, to peel back, revealing a dark creature within. The form stood erect and began, hungrily, to consume the exterior flesh it had just shed. Beth put her hands to her face and screamed wildly.

Carlyle grimaced saying, I don’t remember this…keep rolling…where is my script!

Beth looked on with horror as Theo continued his bloody metamorphosis. She screamed again. A cloud of small, winged lizards suddenly burst from the thicket.

One of the senior Indians stood in alarm. This is an omen! The Avanyu. The Piasa! Underworld spirits come for us! We must leave this place at once!

We can’t leave, Chief! Carlyle protested. We must continue shooting!

Beth, shocked by Theo’s morbid, peeling flesh, fell to her knees screaming.

Carlyle whispered to his cameraman, Now that’s a scream for yah…are we getting this?

The Indian leader shouted over the winged roar of the small, swarming creatures, No shoot! Leave now! We are all in peril!

The flying swarm thickened and increased in speed, as if celebrating Theo’s bloody transformation. The crowd suddenly bolted from their wooden chairs and headed for their vehicles.

Cut! Goddamnit, cut! Carlyle yelled, waiving his hands as the audience ran through the scene.

The winged swarm thickened. An oil lamp spilled inside the tent and smashed. Flames licked the tent’s walls. The crew grabbed what equipment they could carry and ran for the trucks. The Indians climbed hurriedly into their cars.

As the last truck sped off, Beth looked back. Where is Theo? We’ve got to go back!

I’m not going back there, the driver said. He’s probably in the other truck.

~

A solitary camera lay on its side, its spinet still running. In the light of the burning tent, the camera lens captured the image of Theo, standing amid the small, swarming, winged lizards, dripping in blood and devouring his shed human skin.

The last car to leave the scene was a driven limousine. The two major investors, seated in back, argued as the luxury car’s headlights flashed up and down on the bumpy dirt road.

I don’t know why you accepted the invitation to come all the way out here in the wilderness, Agnew. And for what? Lindsey asked. A horror film like all the other talkies.

Stop complaining, Lindsey, Agnew said. That cloud of bugs and the Chief’s warning spooked everyone.

Carlyle’s crew will be back tomorrow, Lindsey continued grudgingly. He’ll be asking us for more money.

Agnew said, We both agreed the initial script sounded appealing, based on 201-million-year-old fossils found in this area. Matching the myth of the local Indian legend, in a movie script, was appealing. Got us out in the countryside for a change. That monster scene was scary enough.

The driver looked back at them and said, Looked too damned real to me, sir.

Modern theatre makeup, my friend, Agnew said. The magic of the movies. He gripped the chilled Chardonnay bottle tightly as he poured two goblets, from his seat behind the driver.

Granted, the working title is a bit trite; ‘Lizard Invasion’. But you must admit, Lindsey, we were both intrigued by Director Carlyle.

I swear, Agnew, we have lost our minds investing in this tawdry film, Linsey said sipping his wine with a sigh. The new world of ‘pictures’ does, however, have its charm.

Suddenly the car was driving into another swarm of flying insects. The creatures flew into the open window on Lindsey’s side. The driver continued to drive, turning on his wipers. Agnew and Lindsey both batted the air and rolled up the windows of the lumbering limousine.

When the flying parasites became too much for the driver, he pulled to a stop on the dirt road. With the light of a half moon, the creatures flew at them, inside the cab. Finally, the men threw open their doors and struggled on the ground. The miniature creatures flew at their faces, intent on entering each man’s nose and mouth. Moving in the headlights were a group of man/lizard-like creatures. They rushed forward snarling and screeching, opening their jaws and ripping their prey in their teeth.

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Just before dawn, an old model, Reservation Patrol car shown its spotlight on a figure walking along the edge of a dirt road. The patrol car sounded its siren for a moment. When asked to stop, the figure continued walking. The two officers had been called to the disturbance at the site of the movie shoot by the fleeing crew, who had reached town. The officers noticed that the grotesque figure was wearing nothing but a pair of leather shoes (later found to belong to Theo). When the officer got out of his patrol car and confronted the grotesque figure, it snarled and lashed out. The officer fired one shot from his revolver at the threatening entity. It fell dead. Upon close examination, the man-sized creature was dragging what was left of a human being’s skin, with the spine and head still attached.

~

Dr. Laura Clayton was summoned to her tiny clinic and morgue on the Indian Reservation. The night patrolman was sitting in one of the two adjoining jail cells, with the door open, clutching a cup of coffee. The body of the lizard-like creature lay on the morgue gurney, and the torn strips of human remains, attached to a head, were beside it in a basin.

When she walked in, the officer stood up and followed her to the morgue door. I ain’t gettin’ any closer to that thing than I have to, Dr. Laura.

Have you told anyone about this, Officer Donny?

No, Dr. Laura. They will think I’m crazy. But there it is.

Have you determined the identity of the victim…the head?

Yes. He is on our books as registered with a movie company, come to shoot on location. His name is Theodore Maton, actor. The officer read from penciled notes on a paper tablet. His hands were shaking. This creature was walking along the road. It was dark, but I could see him in the headlights. Eddy and I jumped out of the car.

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The thing came at us really quick.

Dr. Laura Clayton put on an examination mask and gloves.

If it’s alright, I’ll just sit outside, Dr. Laura, for now.

Laura picked up her scalpel. It was just the one shot, Sargent Donny?

The officer nodded saying, Like I say, when Eddy and I stopped that thing on the roadside, he got pretty nasty. Charged at me in the squad car headlights. Just the one shot.

As she leaned over the carcass, Laura looked back at him saying, Get Major Paterson at the Army base on the line for me, Donny. If this is an AHPHET (Alien Human Parasite Homo-Erectus Tromorphic) we may have the break the military has been looking for.

Yes, mam.

Let’s keep this quiet, Donny. Tell your partner Eddy this never happened.

Donny picked up the receiver and dialed three numbers. Yes, mam.

~

The year 2021: The only known Ahphet sarcophagus mysteriously disappeared from a Washington D.C. museum, briefly reappearing at the ICAASS 2021: 19th International Conference on Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science. ICAASS brings together leading academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science. The Ahphet mummy went on display, briefly, during a joint presentation by working astronomers for Spektr-UV, also known as World Space Observatory-Ultraviolet (WSO-UV) space telescope which first identified, the approaching ESO 137-002 spiral galaxy.

There were several papers published on the Ahphet sarcophagus but they, strangely, disappeared from the registry of publications. A single photograph of the Ahphet mummy remained.

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The year 2034: WWIII, commonly called ‘the one-hour war’, yielded wide devastation. Electromagnet pulse weapons, released from space by the warring parties, diffused all electronically-based weapons globally, immobilizing all land and sea-based machinery and munitions, and dropping all aircraft from the skies. Ballistic missiles were diffused in their silos. Most major city capitals were devastated and sent back, technologically, thirty years or more. Millions died. Ironically, several major cities across the planet survived unscathed.

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The 2040s: Domed cities began to appear in the decades following WWIII. Several cities on the planet miraculously escaped annihilation from the EMP storm. They continued to advance their technologies, isolating themselves from the desolation of the planet. The lure of the Citadel and attaining the leap to this satellite from Earth became the focus of freedom from desperation, starvation, and death itself.

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The year 2046: ICAASS 2046: 36th International Conference on Astronomy, Astrophysics and Space Science was reconvened, after a hiatus of nearly two decades in a city untouched by EMP radiation. The Ahphet sarcophagus reappeared in a study of the approaching ESO 137-002, a spiral galaxy. Presenters were identified as astronomers Drs. Morent and Adich, along with scientist Dr. Gantry Tibe. The prospect of a nearing galaxy, bringing new dangers to Earth, was largely ignored by the scientific community, and denied plausibility by the military. Their study was defunded, but reappeared by the same promoters within a new society in 2047.

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2047 Annual Symposium and Membership Dinner of The Society of Anthropology, Astrophysics, and Digital Sciences (SAADS)

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A spectacled man sporting a white beard and in formal dress approached the podium. The richly appointed lecture hall and balcony grew quiet as the figure strode from the curtains onto the stage. "On behalf of the Society of Anthropology, Astrophysics, and Digital Sciences, I welcome you to tonight’s continuation of our three-day lecture series. Although our letters spell ‘sad’ we are most happy to have with us tonight Dr. Elizabeth Diller Hetch, PhD, Dean of our sister university’s School of Anthropological Physics. The title of her talk tonight is; ‘Parasite Anomalies within The Human Genome; Hidden Anthropological Petroglyphic Art Suggests Something beyond Natural Selection’. Give a warm welcome to Dr. Elizabeth Hetch."

The applause subsided as an elderly woman lowered her eyeglasses to her nose and began speaking. "More than 99 percent of all species on Earth, amounting to over five billion that ever lived on the planet, are estimated to be extinct. Calculations on the number of Earth’s current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. We search for evidence.

"Hidden in plain view, is aboriginal art, scratched with an innocent truth on the stones of time. These are a montage of shapes that, when seen using illogical symbolic parallels, can tell a different story of Darwinism than what we are used to. What if not all of the ‘survival of the fittest’ theorems of Charles Darwin are true? What if advances of Darwin’s nineteenth century science left out the possibility of parasites inherent in the function of evolution beyond his book ‘On the Origin of Species’? Could it be that some parasites, growing within early Mankind’s body, could account for a Genome-Altered Humanoid or ‘GAH’. Various genotypes could evolve within early homo-erectus and subsequent species of homo-sapiens.

It is the responsibility of science to draw conclusions from varied sources, and offer hypotheses outside the accepted norm. Our special society alliances, among Anthropology and Astrophysics, give us the freedom to roam beyond the purely logical. Why would we go to the canyon walls to examine 9000-year-old native Indian petroglyphs? Why indeed? There is no logic to pin these etchings to the evolutional advancement of trans/humans on this planet to what I call a ‘Biological Transference/Evolution by Parasite theorem’ (BTEP). And who is to say that a BTEP pathogen process did not exist? The petroglyphic seen on the slide behind me could portray such a process. We would need the parasite. I have identified it as the Rodent Bot Fly Cuterebra Austeni.

Murmurers of approval could be heard in the crowd.

The larvae of the Rodent Bot Fly are parasitic in mammals, including infecting humans, and are indigenous to this canyon region. In the slides appearing on the screen they are numbered according to how I have identified the images…an ancient photo of a human-size parasite Ahphet sarcophagus and the North American Indian’s Avanyu mural.

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Professor Hetch used a light pointer to illuminate the images as she spoke. The Ahphet sarcophagus is often compared to the Avanyu, a North American Indian snake-like deity. We would need a transference technology, in this case the parasitical process. We might suggest that over the generations, the parasite would bear resemblance more to the host. Indeed, could it be possible that we have shared our time on this planet with separately evolved para/humanoids, in our midst but out of our sight? And what of the origin of the parasite? Was it naturally forming on Earth, or of extra-terrestrial origin?

There was an excited, but then uncomfortable murmur that spread through the crowd.

Genetic variation and mutation, as a part of parasite presence, is not beyond reason, and although speculation is not science, could the native Indians have left us a nine-thousand-year- old message that we are, only now, interpreting? The answer falls on more than just imagination…now we have only supposition not evidence, logic, but not the scientific method. Dr. Hetch bowed her head to signal the end to her presentation.

The crowd applauded generously.

Dr. Hetch tapped closed her digital notes and looked out at the audience. "My full paper is in the convocation publication. One of the questions I pose, in conclusion, is this query. There has been, in the recent era of domed cities, a vast number of unsolved cases of missing persons, lost and never found children, abductions, and unexplained disappearances. Humans, living in our domed cities of today, are vanishing. Since the War, the badlands have seen a growing number of what has been identified as sub-earth creatures emerging to the surface. My personal opinion, like any speculation, is not science. But I will leave you with this. Humans, who are infected by the Ahphet parasite, and who sense that their bodily metamorphosis is near, may wander off to an Ahphet-safe refuge. The Ahphet breach, out of its human skinned host, is traumatic. That would explain their disappearance. There is something out there, in the