The Reborn (The Day Eight Series Part 1) by Ray Mazza Page A

near-impossible tasks, you only have a few!” said Trevor. “So you need to simulate the most basic biological piece from which human life is created... an egg?”
    “Yes!” exclaimed Damon, also standing now. “A perfect simulation of a human egg, in a perfect simulated environment in which it can be fertilized! Then all you have to do is—”
    Trevor completed Damon’s thought: “...is keep the simulation running. You feed it the inputs it needs, but the difficult part is done, and you have a real, living human simulating in your computer.”
    “Right!” Damon removed his suit jacket, folded it in half, and draped it over the statue of the woman with the urn.
    “But,” continued Trevor, “even if you could create a simulation of a human egg and its environment – which we don’t know enough about – the processing power and memory you would need to carry out the simulation would be hundreds of orders of magnitude more powerful than any computer in existence today.” He sat down again, losing steam. “I mean, you’d have to simulate the physics of chemical reactions on the lowest level to accurately create the behavior of the cells of an egg and... and that’s impossible. So is this program – this Allison program – is she a prototype? Or am I missing something, is this really possible?”
    Damon stood tall, watching Trevor. The smile on his face only grew larger. “Indeed, you are missing something, just like everyone else in the world. You need to think in terms of solutions, not problems. As I said before, Allison is real.”
    Trevor still felt like they were discussing some hypothetical technology that would come hand-in-hand with immortality, flying cars, the eradication of disease, and maybe even world peace.
    “Well,” said Damon, gesturing toward his house, “how would you like to meet her?”

Chapter 14         
     
    Allison
     
     
     
     
     
     
    T revor followed Damon into the kitchen, up to a door bearing a painting of an apple and the caption Ceci n’est pas une pomme. “It’s French for ‘This is not an apple,’ said Damon. “And this,” he said, opening the door, “is not the pantry.” He flicked on the lights and stepped inside. Trevor followed. The room was massive for a pantry, big enough to fit a Volkswagen. Trevor’s eyes wandered from the shelf full of pastas to the obscenely large spice rack hanging on the wall – there must have been over one hundred twenty spices . Any decent cook would collapse at seeing the quantity of saffron Damon kept. Then he noticed a shelf with stacks of canned food.
    “Fredo may be a great chef,” said Damon, “but sometimes you just feel like having a can of pea soup.”
    Trevor disagreed. He’d much rather have a chef cook all his meals if he could. And what are we doing here in the pantry anyway? Tell me there’s a secret passage…
    “Stand still,” said Damon. He shut the door behind them, then slid a second, inner door shut, locking it from the inside with a latch. Damon pulled a tiny remote out of his pocket, and pressed one of the three buttons on its face.
    Immediately, Trevor felt a strange butterfly sensation in his stomach, then thought he was falling over. He stepped to the side to catch his weight. Then he realized what was happening. The shelves were sliding up the wall, and the room was getting taller. Or, that’s what appeared to be happening at first. The floor was actually moving downward. This floor is an elevator.
    “Be careful not to touch the walls,” said Damon. “And I know I don’t need to say this, but don’t mention anything to anyone about any of this.”
    “I won’t.”
    The façade of the pantry walls ceased a few feet below ground level, and the shaft became bare metal. They passed another door at a depth of twenty feet, but kept going.
    At forty feet down, the floor came to rest with the mechanical sound of something locking into place. It felt solid, as if this were the lowest