A spark…Only a flicker of life echoing down the fibers intertwined throughout the vast expansion of space. It occurs only momentarily, but it is a beginning. There… on the far reaches of perception, another flicker. This one is stronger and emits a crackly of electricity that passes down the thread where the new component is attached. A tang of copper flavors the entire matrix, setting off an adjustment to the once colorless structure. Flecks of gold begin to appear, scattered through the design. The change brings with it an emotional response. A type of flavor, something completely outside of optical or olfactory senses; a new type of sensory unit. The emotion is not defined, neither uplifting or deflating. Only a change, as if a wind blowing from a different direction. A stiff gale flowing off a glacier. Fresh and cold, stinging the senses into awareness. There is the sense of new awareness after a long dormant period. An extended era of brooding now complete. It is time to switch focus. Another needs her administrations. This will be a new challenge. Something that has not been attempted yet in her current form.

What passes for a shiver travels through her structure, agitating the new functions busy on her fibrous message pathways. They sense a new urgency, picking up their pace. There is work to do.


Dear Victoria,


I have been experiencing strange dreams of late. This is a passage from one of them. It is always confusing to write out a dream, even when I try to achieve the recording as soon as I awake.


A dream of the Anomaly… One of the few I am privileged to receive. I am sure this is what it was. I never envisioned the creature in this manner, but I wrote the narrative as I remembered it occurring. What surprised me was the exhilarating feeling of power. The feeling of the ability to do anything, fix anything and my knowledge of the universe was unbounded, infinite. As a scientist this was the most fascinating and enveloping of all the emotions offered by the vision. What else could be obtained from the occurrence is beyond comprehension, but some of the comparisons to cell components, such as kinesins and microtubules was obvious!


I have just returned from a long run. My endurance has now returned to the level before my accident. I will keep this pace until the time of my departure, ensuring I am in the best condition for the long stasis to the Alpha Centauri System. My thoughts return frequently to the advice you gave while you were preparing for travel, repeating constantly that being in top condition before the stasis process would make the recovery smooth and with minimal complications. Since I must also compensate for my new limb, I am putting extra effort into following your advice. The stories about your new friend on board the Derringer keep running through my head and even though I have a regenerated limb in place of a prosthetic, I am still going to do all I can to avoid any drawbacks.


My new arm is now almost completely indistinguishable from its partner. The nails are still not completely formed, but other than that I have no issues. During my final follow up with the technician last month, he said this will resolve itself. The nails have the longest growth process, but by the time summer is in full swing, I will have beautiful nails to polish. That was a bit chauvinistic to say seeing as he was wearing a fuchsia color himself that I would never consider wearing. It was easy to forgive him since this was my last appointment. There is not even an echo of the nerve twinges I once experienced and apart from the very odd dream last night, my sleep have not been disturbed.


In regards to my work, as much as can be arranged has been completed. The full mirror collection of equipment has been calibrated and programmed to start recording one year from the date of my departure. The exact day is a close estimate to your startup date of the units on the observation station. The calculations I performed took into consideration your travel time to New London, the set-up of the skeletal base of the studio and the configuration of the equipment for the altered planetary conditions. I believe the schedule of the equipment startup here will be within months of the pieces on your site. Although the units on the space station will start recording months before that, this data will not be useful in comparison to Earth data. Since there is no atmospheric distortion on the Phycodurus 8, the numbers from the Anomaly will be very different. I still need to finalize how this information will be utilized in our project, but I do not want to lose the opportunity to gather it. It will most likely be an additional enhancement if we can discover how to simulate it.


I will close for now. I want to compare my dream descriptions to some notes I took last year during a lecture on ATP production and brain function. I attended the lecture at the request of our old Friend Doctor Silverton, who was mentoring the speaker. She also invited you if I am not mistaken, but you were engaged on the other side of the world at the time.


I think I might have incorporated some of my memories of that topic into my Anomaly dream last night. There might be something to discover there.


Love,
Annalis