The Synasyup Duplicate

This image was made using
"Elfy and Kelly" by Eclesi4stiK
available under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Below on this page is Part 13 of the science fiction story The Historical Archive. Previously, in Part 12, Nyrtia's plans for Zeta's twins was revealed. The twins will be born crafted inside the Reality Simulation System. Nyrtia wants as helpers two powerful telepaths who will be able to influence the thoughts and behavior of humans on Earth, without them ever having to leave the Reality Simulation System.

Nyrtia Tricks. Now the Editor is contemplating how he will begin the make use of his access to the Reality Simulation System. He fears that each time he enters into a Simulation, a duplicate copy of himself will be made and trapped inside the Reality Simulation System. But maybe there is a technology-savy individual accessible through the Reality Simulation System who can help the Editor switch-off that annoying duplication process.

Part 13 of The Historical Archive (Part 1)(Part 2)(Part 3)(Part 4)(Part 5)(Part 6)(Part 7)(Part 8)(Part 9)(Part 10)(Part 11)(Part 12) 

I was up late, working on my written account of the first time travel mission that Nyrtia took, her journey to the alien bioreactor research facility inside Earth. Rylla popped up on my computer for a videochat and abruptly said, "So, tell me this... how did Nyrtia end up with Zeta's giant breasts?"

Qway

Rylla had been reading a report that I'd recently written about the hormones oxypathin and clytykynyn. I explained, "Nyrtia adopted the body form of a First Reality woman named Qway. I don't think Zeta's inflated breasts are really all that similar to Nyrtia's. Qway was a Nyrturian who existed millions of years before the first Asterothrope. I suspect that Zeta's breasts are now shaped like rather standard Asterothrope breasts and specialized for making oxypathin."

"Ah, I see... well, I'm looking forward to your report on the Nyrturians." Rylla told me, "I've started some laboratory testing... my search for unusual polypeptides in my milk."

I asked, "Isn't that dangerous? If you find that an oxypathin peptide is being made by your body, how will you explain it to your boss?"

Rylla shrugged. "I'll figure out some convincing lie. Right now my adviser thinks I'm just studying samples of squirrel milk." Rylla giggled quietly. "Oh, and I got your semen sample by AirEx. Next week I'll start the search for clytykynyn." I saw Rylla lick her lips.

"So you got a positive from the bio-assay?"

Rylla nodded. "Judging by my taste test, I've got clytykynyn receptors."

I tried not to think about poor Rylla tasting a frozen sample of my semen. "Your scientific dedication is admirable."

"Don't be squeamish, grandpa. I tasted good... one drop and my whole mouth was tingling. Now I can understand why Zeta got herself addicted to your ejaculate."

Oxypathin

"And poor Tihri is addicted to Zeta's milk. I'm almost afraid to touch Zeta's breasts now for fear of getting addicted, too." Trying to ignore Rylla's four breasts, I asked, "Any progress on deciphering that Writers Block story?"

"Progress? That might be asking too much." Rylla sighed. "The latest fragment of that story was sent through from Observer Base, but it makes no sense."

I suggested, "If it was written down as fiction 2,000 years ago, it might never make sense to our rational minds."

"I don't think this story is 2,000 years old. Nothing is clearly explained, but it seems that  Yanyky was taken off of Earth and then resided in some alternate space... a kind of prison world... maybe in the Hierion Domain." Rylla asked, "Can you see my file 'Yan15' online?"

I opened up a new search window. "I suspect the name 'Yanyky' is an invention, possible a protest name adopted by the original Earth woman who was named 'Jorja'." I searched through our shared file space and opened the most recent file from Rylla. "I have it." I quickly skimmed the text in the file. Rylla and I were working on the hypothesis that the original Greek woman named Jorja had been taken off of Earth and replaced by my femtobot copy, who I'd taken to calling Mr. Smith.

Rylla said, "And I don't know the 'Lucyny' character, but the description of her makes me wonder if she was an Asterothrope."

Ekcolir's mission into the past

I told Rylla, "I have not been able to write my account of this yet, but on one of my trips in the Simulator with Nyrtia, I met a woman named Tanny Lucyny... she was a copy of Trysta Iwedon, the Asterothrope."

"A copy of..." Rylla whistled. "Yikes!" Rylla rubbed her chin in contemplation. "Maybe this is starting to make some sense, finally. It seems that Yanyky inherited many Ek'col and Kac'hin genes from Ekcolir and Grean, but why not also Asterothrope genes?"

I suggested, "When the Ek'col and the Kac'hin were created, they probably both had plenty of Asterothrope gene sequences."

Rylla nodded, "Well, read Yan15 for yourself. Apparently, Yanyky and Lucyny had similar brains and they were able to share orgasm trances."

Scanning through the last page of text in Yan15, I was impressed by this wild account of deep telepathic communication between two women, apparently living on Earth. I suggested, "This story was all fractured in translation, but I bet they were also using a synapex link between their brains. That may have boosted their telepathic abilities enough to given them access the sedron time stream."

Rylla drew my attention to a cryptic footnote in the Yan15 document. "What do you think this means; Gamma b.1959 to Gwen?"

I explained, "Tanny Lucyny's daughter was named Gwen. When I met her, inside the Simulator, she must have been about... oh, I don't know... let's say 30 years old."

Rylla asked, "Might she have had a daughter in 1959?"

original cover art by Ed Emshwiller

When I'd met Gwen, I'd had the distinct impression that Gwen was a nubile and had never gone through a pregnancy. "Maybe, but that might have been before she was sent to Earth as an Interventionist agent. I'll have to investigate that possibility." For a moment I marveled at how our search for old stories about Nyrtia had led to this new information about another possible member of Trysta's family. My musings were interrupted just then when I sensed that Synasyup had again telepathically linked into my mind. 

While writing, I'd been trying to ignore the thoughts of Synasyup while she was down the hallway and merrily engaged in sexplay with Nora. Synasyup told me, "That was weird."

Synasyup was there in the room with me. Hearing her voice, I looked over my shoulder at Synasyup and could telepathically sense a swirling cloud of confused thoughts in her mind. I quickly told Rylla, "I'll send you my notes on Yan15. Later." I broke the videochat connection to Rylla and tried to focus on Synasyup's boiling mind, but her thoughts were like a freakish echo. And this echo was getting louder. I'd experienced the effects of this kind of telepathic feedback previously, back when the Bimanoid Interface 2.0 was first activated. I told Synasyup, "If there are two of you now, this could be dangerous."

Synasyup could see in my mind the danger of telepathic positive feedback. I ran out of the living room then down the hallway and barged into Nora's bedroom. Another copy of Synasyup was there, siting on the bed and holding her head. Nora asked me, "Another Synasyup?"

"Yes, a copy of Synasyup just appeared in the living room." The copy of Synasyup there with Nora was in the body of Pausanias and was sporting an erection, but I could clearly sense the Synasyup mind pattern in 'his' telepathic emanations. I ran back to the living room and brought up onto the computer screen the Simulation System Index. I told Synasyup, "We have to get you out of here. Where do you want to go?"

image source

She reached past me, grabbed the mouse and muttered, "This might not work." Then she violently shoved me and shouted, "Go away, I don't want to take you with me into the Simulator."

Wondering if there was any safe distance that would prevent me from being dragged into the Simulator, I quickly departed and found Zeta in our bedroom. She was sleeping soundly. I could still feel the two Synasyup minds, their telepathic presence growing incredibly 'loud' inside my mind. Then, mercifully, the cycle of positive feedback was broken and I could sense that only one Synasyup remained in the house. Still, my head was throbbing with pain. I laid down beside Zeta, clutching my head. The remaining copy of Synasyup sold me telepathically: My copy was sent into the Simulator, along with everyone else in this house.

Synasyup's swirling thoughts made no sense to me. I was exerting all of my cognitive effort to single task of trying not to vomit. I closed my mind to Synasyup and was grateful for the feature of Asterothrope culture that required telepaths to only enter another person's mind when invited to do so. Now with Synasyup's thoughts cleared from my mind, I tried desperately to sleep, hoping that when I awoke my brain would be healed and the pain would be gone. But just then Zeta woke up and put her arms around me, mumbling, "What a strange dream..." Then she noticed that I was sweating and asked, "What's wrong?"

I mumbled, "Simulator accident."

Zeta got out of bed and returned with a cold, wet cloth which she pressed to my head. "You're burning up!"

"My brain almost got fried when two copies of Synasyup went into a positive feedback amplification loop."

Bimanoid Interface

Zeta held on to me until I was able to slip into sleep. When I woke up the next morning, Zeta was there watching me. She said, "You slept like the dead."

I felt much better than I had before falling asleep. I asked, "How is Synasyup?"

"She seems fine. She wants to talk to you." 

I opened up my mind and Synasyup was once again there in my thoughts. A moment later she came into the bedroom, glanced at me, then sat down next to Zeta. Synasyup was back in the body of a human female. Soon Nora arrived, sat on the bed beside me and checked my temperature. I felt strangely weak. She helped me sit up and told Zeta, "I think he'll be okay, but my medical nanites say that some parts of his brain like the motor cortex are still inflamed."

I don't want to over-load your brain. Synasyup and I were rapidly but tentatively exchanging greetings and pleasant little thoughts via our telepathic connection. At the same time, she told me out-loud, "My best guess is that the Simulation access system given to you by Nyrtia can work in two modes. In normal mode, it simply teleports a copy of you into the Simulator. But there is a second mode which creates a teleportation duplicate. That's how we ended up with two copies of me in the house."

I shook my head, "But when you appeared, I was busy in video conference with Rylla. I did not even have the Simulation Index open and running on the computer. There's no way I could have accidentally created a second copy of you."

Synasyup smiled enigmatically and nodded her head. "True." She explained, "I think the duplicates were made last evening, right when I began to think about a target destination for a peek at the future. My thoughts... my desire to see the future..." She paused and for a moment I could see a strange concept in her thoughts. "Right at that moment, we must have all been duplicated. You, me, Zeta... even the kids."

Synasyup the Asterothrope

Zeta came over and sat on the bed. She put an arm around me and asked Synasyup, "What are you talking about?"

Synasyup giggled. "I could see it in the mind of my copy. When she appeared back here in Reality, she had just been in the Simulator with copies of you all. Then she popped herself out of that Simulation and when she came back here... BOOM! Our two telepathically-linked minds went into a resonating feedback loop."

Nora skeptically asked, "Are you saying that we now... each of us have duplicate copies who are inside the Simulator?"

Synasyup seemed to have doubts about her own hypothesis, but she nodded. "Apparently."

Zeta asked, "What can we do about it?"

Synasyup shrugged. "Nothing." She told Zeta, "I think this must have been Nyrtia's plan from the very beginning. She wants your twins to be born inside the Simulator, not out here in the real world."

Nora nodded. "Of course. Nyrtia does not want to violate the Rules of Intervention and get into trouble with the Huaoshy. She wouldn't dare field two powerful telepaths on Earth."

Zeta hugged me tight and laughed rather gleefully. "Does this mean that I don't really have to get pregnant?"

Synasyup

"Don't jump to conclusions..." Synasyup placed a hand on Zeta and closed her eyes. After a minute of silence, she said, "You don't get off that easily. You are already pregnant."

Zeta whispered, "What?"

Synasyup opened her eyes and explained to Zeta, "You are carrying the artificially constructed conceptus that I put it inside you yesterday." I could sense in Synasyup's thoughts an outline of how she had combined gene patterns obtained from Nora with the other half of am artificial genome that she carried, coded in the femtobots of her body. "The embryo is already implanting into the wall of your uterus. But you are not ovulating, so you won't have twins. No... the twins will be born to your copy inside the Simulator."  

Zeta nodded. "Now I understand what Alpha tried to tell me with those infites..."

I said, "I don't believe it. I've seen the future. Zeta does not have another baby after Tihri..."

Rules of Intervention

Synasyup shifted her hand off of Zeta and placed it on my shoulder and told me, "I did not say that Zeta will give birth to a baby."

Zeta took hold of both my hands and explained, "I see it now. Nyrtia tried to tell me, but I could not understand. The artificial mind clone that Nora and Synasyup made will never be born. It will... reside in my body and become my endosymbiont and provide a way for us to communicate to the twins inside the Simulator."

I tried to picture an embryonic telepathic mind trapped inside Zeta's body. I threw my arms around Zeta and whispered in her ear, "How horrible."

She laughed and told me. "How wonderful! I'll get to experience the twins without having to give birth to them. It is the best of all possible worlds..."

Nora asked, "The copy of you who is inside the simulator will go through a full pregnancy and give birth to the twins?"

Synasyup got off of the bed and went to the door. She half turned back towards us and told me, "I'm sorry for the damage I did to your brain. I realize now that I should not have spent the night." She told Nora, "I was simply having too much fun... enjoying sexplay with another replicoid..." With a little wave of her hand she said, "I'll be off, now." She passed through the doorway and I never saw that copy of Synasyup again.

Nora got on the bed and hugged Zeta. "I feel like I should congratulate you on your pregnancy. I hope you are not mad at my for helping Synasyup put this embryo inside you."

Gwyned

Zeta slid a hand inside Nora's skirt and said, "You are always welcome inside me. I adore your cute little penis." Zeta kissed Nora, but just then Tihri came into the room. She's still so small. I helped her up onto the bed and she began nursing. Nora went off to check on Dysyn. 

I wandered out of the bedroom, my feet dragging. It was not easy for me to walk. I was tempted to go relax in the hot tub, but I went back to my computer and saw that Synasyup had left open a window for the Simulation System Index. I closed out that window and saw the text of Yan15 on the screen. I began putting down in writing for Rylla what I knew about Tanny and Gwen Lucyny, but then a strange idea popped into my mind.

I was thinking about the two copies of Synasyup and the idea that Gwen was a copy of Gwyned, a woman who had lived in the Ekcolir Reality. I'd long imagined that after being exiled from Earth, Gwyned had ended up living in the Galactic Core. I reactivated the Simulation System Index and began contemplating how best to use the Simulation System to learn about the fate of Gamma. However, my thoughts were racing ahead of all bounds of logic. I could not stop thinking about the Gohrlay clones.

I knew that a clone of Gohrlay had existed on Earth in the Ekcolir Reality: Roben. However, in the Final Reality, many cloned copies of Gohrlay had been made and at least three of them had spent time on Earth: Alpha, Yōd and Zeta. It was an interesting puzzle: exactly how many copies of Gohrlay were there?

Of course, it was the unusual name 'Gamma' that had me imagining that "Gamma b.1959 to Gwen" might might refer to a clone of Gohrlay. If Zeta was now pregnant and carrying an artificially constructed embryo... I felt a surge of jealousy. Somehow the thought of an embryo growing inside Zeta, one that I had not fathered, filled me with harsh emotions. Who was Synasyup to come into our house and impregnate Zeta?

Roben

However, now I had the strange new concept of an embryo that would never be born. An embryo that would grow into a telepathic endosymbiont, residing inside a woman's body. But why would anyone implant a copy of Gohrlay inside Gwen?

I thought about mind clones. What was it that Zeta had said? I recalled that Zeta had referred to the embryo inside her uterus as a mind clone that would be telepathically linked to the twins. I nodded to myself. Nyrtia had experimented with curing Zeta of her telepathic 'burn in'. Poor Zeta could really only telepathically link to just one other person: me. Was the 'cure' for Zeta's 'burn in' this new mind clone that was now growing inside Zeta?

I tried to remember what I knew about Roben's life in the Ekcolir Reality, but then my mind wandered down another path. I recalled how Alpha Gohrlay had told me that there were clones of me on Earth. I'd always been disgusted by the thought that I might someday meet a copy of myself and now Synasyup claimed that there was a copy of me in the Simulator System. In fact, nothing was preventing me from going to visit that copy. Or was there? What if every time I used the Simulator another copy of me would be made?

For a few minutes I contemplated the idea that I could make hundreds of copies of myself inside the Simulator System. I thought about by ability to telepathically communicate with Yōd even though she was inside the Asimov Reality Simulator. Of course, that telepathic link to Yōd was weak and only worked when I was asleep.

The Asimov Reality Simulator

I realized that there was no reason for me to assume that the AR Simulator inside Observer Base was even part of Nyrtia's Simulator System. I started thinking about the possibility of trying to contact Nyrtia through the Simulator System, but she had the annoying habit of only telling me just enough to get me to go along with her schemes. I was not happy with Nyrtia and the games she seemed to enjoy and the tricks she had pulled on me. For a time, I fantasized about making love to Nyrtia, then shook myself out of my memories of being linked to her mind by orgasm trances and synapex connections. As much as I felt intimidated by Nyrtia, I could not really imagine her doing me real harm. I'd seen deep into her mind and I truly believed that she wanted what was best for Humanity. Of course, that might involve little tricks like putting a femtobot embryo into my wife's uterus.

And had either Nyrtia or someone else played a similar trick on Gwen, placing a Gohrlay clone inside her body? Just to allow telepathic contact to Roben? And what about me? How could I be both tryp'At and an analogue of Meppen, a resident of Observer Base back in the First Reality, long before the tryp'At were ever crafted and deployed on Earth?

And Gwen had told me that her mission on Earth involved the tryp'At. I had the feeling that I was thinking my way around the edges of a revelation that would explain many mysteries. My hunch was that I needed to find Gamma in the Simulator System. I began to initiate a videochat with Rylla so that we could discuss that idea, but I hesitated. I was there at the computer, frozen with indecision when Zeta and Tihri came into the room. Zeta said, "I'm hungry."

femtobot replicoids

Suddenly, I realized that I was hungry too. "That's odd." I had gotten used to not having to eat and I could not even remember the last time I had urinated or defecated. But now I could sense that I had fluid in my bladder. I went off and urinated and made some anatomical discoveries; my allzaurish was transforming back into rectum and an anus and my genitals were shrinking. I then joined Zeta in the kitchen. I reached a hand inside her skirt and tried to push a finger into her allzaurish.

Zeta was slicing up some oranges and giggled. Then she realized that she no longer had an allzaurish. She dropped her knife and her hand still sticky with orange juice, she reached into my pants. I put my hands on her breasts and could sense that they were not quite as enormous as they had been the day before. Zeta said, "Well, I suppose that was fun while it lasted."

I bounced her breasts up and down and said, "I suppose our copies inside the Simulator are going to keep their alternate anatomy."

Zeta took her sticky fingers off of my penis and investigated her vagina and felt the glans of her clitoris. "Nora will be sad." She told me, "My penis is definitely regressing."

I quickly told Zeta about Gamma. "You do have a sister named Gamma, don't you?"

Zeta turned away from me and went back to fixing breakfast.

When we sat down in the dining room to eat, I said, "Tell me about Gamma."

clones of Gohrlay - Image credits.

I thought that Zeta was going to continue ignoring me. I could sense that she was trying to hide something from my telepathic probing. Finally she said, "There was a problem with Gamma."

"What kind of problem?"

"I've told you that all we clones were tested. Tested for ability to use the Bimanoid Interface. Tested for our ability to produce and raise a baby. After those tests were complete, we never saw Gamma again."

"She just disappeared?"

"There were rumors that she had been sent on a special mission to Earth."

I suggested, "Maybe you should come with me... I need to find Gamma."

Zeta looked at me skeptically. "Need?"

I shrugged. "My guess is that the Nyrtia nanites programmed me to seek out Gamma. I have the feeling that she can explain to me the mystery of how I was transformed into a tryp'At. I know I had a partial analogue in the Ekcolir Reality who was not tryp'At. Then what happened? How do you change a human into a tryp'At?"

Zeta asked, "Do you really think my sister Gamma can explain that?"

This image made using shadow hunter1,
a copyrighted photograph provided
courtesy of Gretchen Byers.

"I think Gamma was sent to Earth to help Gwen deal with the tryp'At Interventionists who were stationed on Earth. She must have been trained for that mission, just as you were trained for your mission on Earth."

Zeta sighed. "What about your promise to wait two weeks before using the Simulator?"

I was nervous about trying to use the Simulation System, but if the worst that could happen was creating a copy of myself, that seemed like it was acceptable payment for what I could learn inside the Simulator. "I'm going to let Rylla know my plans, but I don't think it makes sense to wait. In fact..." I fell silent. Another crazy idea had popped into my head.

Zeta got out of her chair and came over to me. She sat in my lap and put her arms around my neck. "What?"

"When I get back, our bodies will be back to normal. We can celebrate the old fashioned way." I kissed her nose. "I'll leave it to you to deal with weaning Tihri off of oxypathin."

Zeta asked wistfully, "And no more clytykynyn?"

"Sorry, my love. If I'm right about all this, then by the time I return from the Simulator, my body will no longer be making clytykynyn."

Zeta rested her head on my shoulder. "I suppose it is for the best. It may not be healthy for me to constantly crave the taste of your semen."

The next day, I opened up the Simulation System Index on my computer and when I focused in on Perth Australia in the 1960s, I found a note from Nyrtia: "Use this entry point for the Simulator and have fun." I was still uncertain about my ability to return from the Simulator, but off I went to Perth in search of Gamma.

Next: Part 14 of The Historical Archive.