Chapter 1

(System reboot.) (60sec) (unknown control software error) (attempting to interface with neural wetware)

Bright lights flashed across my eyes, I had no idea where I was, but there was a buzzing in my head that was becoming more and more persistent. I was staring up at the sky, with the wind flying through my hair.

(50% sensors restored, HUD Activated)

"Well that's not right. Since when did I start seeing text before my eyes, at least not before I woke up?"

(Wait, altitude falling)

I tried to move and with that began to tumble end over end; I was free falling from the sky.

"OH FUCK ME! this has to be a dream."

(impact in 54 sec)

"OH GOD! I'm in the Golem. What happened? How did this happen? Focus Sumner focus. Was I testing it?"

That sounded right, but something was off, it felt like large chunks of my memory had gone missing. I seemed to be able to think more rapidly as well. If this is a test I can figure it out when I land.

(Emergency landing procedure activate)

I felt my body being curled up into a ball on its own. The Golem was designed for this, to be dropped from orbit to survey a new planet. I watched as seconds ticked by and closed my eyes as the moment came, there was heat and fire and the impact which shook every part of me.

(diagnostics begin please do not move)

I could feel the machines in the Golem stretch its limbs out. I saw the status flash green on each one of the systems until it gave me the chance to stand. Then I noticed I was naked, or well the Golem was. The golem had a suit and tools with which it would always be sent out, only during initial startup was it naked.

Why was I sent out naked? Why is the external link dead? That was an impossibility, I had to be controlling this thing from the lab. Why can't I see the link? I began to worry maybe it was a glitch and people where on it already? But still I couldn't remember so much of my life now that I thought about it. I was Dr. Laura Sumner, head Scientist on the Golem Project, I went to? Damn! I trained at? no no. I live at? And that's when I remembered, I saw my body being shot to death.

OH MY GOD (system reboot) I awoke again looking up at the night sky, I was laying in my own blast crater naked, and I remembered it all again. Wow, I had fainted. Something was very wrong. What just happened to me should not be allowed to happen. I started to go over the Golem design specs in my head.

The Golem is a bioroid, a genetic construct. Enhanced DNA is taken from a human - me in this case - and used to construct a perfect body around a cybernetic endoskeleton. The brain is an ultra-advanced hybrid of a blank human brain and super computer which was to act as a link between a quantum tether across space and time to allow for extra-solar space missions.

It had a probe into itself, self repairing, self powered. It was very robust, designed to survive almost anything it could encounter, including first contact situations. It was decided to appear 100% human on the exterior, in this case human female, and based on an idealized version of me.

The human parts of the bioroid could self sustain it for years, in fact with the nanites in it and the fusion power cell it could, in theory, operate forever. It was made so future generations could use it to explore planets we discovered without ever leaving earth. But now I was somehow trapped in it. I had to get to my lab.

The design was taken from military specs, used to reduce the human cost of wars. It was an advanced combat chassis I had co-opted to perform in deep space and to survive the rigors of ultra-light speed travel. I had beefed up the brain and memory capacity in the hopes of installing an AI so that a human would not always be required to operate it. The quantum tether should function anywhere in the universe no matter what the distance. Yet here I was with no signal. Even if the base was destroyed I should be able to pick up some traffic on the line.