One-thousand words Sci-Fi variations of classics
|
Asimov's Foundation
I always wanted to bring The Foundation closer to our time, with more credible technologies and a bit more voluptuous. Original vs Variation (link) |
Foundation 1k Variation
THE PSYCHOHISTORIANS
HARI SELDON–...born in the 2139th year of the Solar Era; physical death in 2285 with no recorded mind-uploading. Born to middle-class parents in Neptune Orbit, Triton sector (where his mother worked as a data interpreter and his father as a journalist). Enhanced under the Luxemburg Genetic Limits Agreement, he was early identified as being above three standard deviations beyond the mean based on mathematical skills. Anecdotes concerning his ability are innumerable…
... undoubtedly his most significant contributions were in the field of psychohistory. Seldon found an area little more than a set of vague axioms concerning geometrical growth and inferential statistics; he left it as a profound theory running on a AI that…
... The best existing authority we have for the details of his life is the biography written by Gaal Dornick, who, as a young man, met Seldon two years before the great mathematician's death. The story of the meeting …
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a Jupiter cabin postgraduate who had never swum in an ocean. That is, not in a real environment. He had seen the Imperial Coronation in an age where quantum communication eliminated delays, and he had been following the annual Galactic Council since he was 17. Therefore, even though he lived all his youth near Ganymede, some 650 million kilometers from Earth, it can be said that he had never really been isolated from the influence of the capital. At that time, almost no place in the Solar System was.
There were 745 manned Space Stations in the Solar System, with an average of more than one thousand people each. Not a single one had refused the ‘invitation’ the allegiance to the Empire, whose seat was under the waters of the Mediterranean
To Gaal, this trip was, undoubtedly, the climax of his young scholarly life.
It's true that he had been in space all his life. It's also true that he had drifted, paraded, and even slept for whole solar cycles during the regional training, something that all students have gone through in Station UK-Solaris-2078. In fact, any kid outside Earth had more space experience than a trained pilot of the capital; however, space-voyage through the Solar System was an entirely different experience and a dream for most students.
Gaal had applied to travel in wake-mode, a service that was more costly, way less comfortable and definitely less used than hibernation. Hyper-space could have been developed with the technology of that age, but the following historical circumstances, as we will see, postponed for hundreds of years Hyper-space, and many other inventions.
Travelling through ordinary space never surpassed the record of 398,000 km/h, which meant that Gaal’s first and last trip to Earth took him around seventy days.
After leaving behind Ganymede, Jupiter, Mars and the Moon, he found himself near the stage of his voyage with his recently obtained doctorate in Math-programming, and an invitation from the great scientist Hari Seldon to join his project. Indeed, the end was going to be a promising beginning. And the beginning, on that year 2203, started with him entering Earth’s atmosphere and plunging inside the Mediterranean waters. Not far away from the ancient cities that had produced the first mathematicians, such us Thales of Miletus and Pythagoras.
What fulfilled Gaal, after the disappointment of not being allowed to be awake in the atmospheric entry, was the view of the sea from inside the Sub-port. Most specifically, the feeling of fear and awe of knowing that he was not in a living room experiencing a virtual recreation, but actually under tons of water.
Nor the brilliance of the Sun growing with each cycle, nor the hazy swarms of star clusters afar caught in mid-motion and stilled forever day after day. What became his most memorable experience of that voyage was actually the echoes produced by the metallics walls of the Sub-port against the infinite amount of mindless water molecules trying to crush it.
The first sight of Earth from inside its atmosphere were the light beams refracted in deep and clear waters, like the colored glass of a cathedral, illuminating the passway while he and the others walked to the arriving gate.
A robot in the shape of a cartoonish bear, dressed in police clothes, came and addressed all the 333 passengers from that flight: "Welcome to Trantor passengers from UK-Solaris. Twenty-four hours quarantine is required for medical examination and physical adaptation. You all have received a message with the code number and a locator of your corresponding cell. Thank you."
Gaal followed the crowd and that bear-robot wearing the blue uniform with the coat of arms of the Empire on it. Only high officials in Jupiter could wear that rocket going to Space image stamped on their uniforms, but in Trantor, even a cute bear-robot was allowed to wear it.
He said, "Excuse me. Could it be possible to see the dome-passway during the 24 hours quarantine? I would like to see the Mediterranean under the Sun's light".
The robot said, "Each cell has full experiences, sir, including a replication of that dome-passway. It is actually the best-rated experience by people from your region."
"I mean, I want to see it real. I heard we can rent submersibles to explore ."
"Oh. Sorry, sir. Your body might collapse in a few hours without medical adaptation. Aside from that problem, quarantines are top-down policies, so there is nothing we could do about it. You'll be better in your cell, trust us. In any case, you'll be able to rent submersible after the 24 hours quarantine and adaptation period. However, sir, I'm obliged to inform you that you wouldn't see fishes and other animals. Waters are polluted."
Gaal looked upwards, to the crystal dome, then to the officer. "Oh, that's a pity. Thank you very much."
It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child, and there was a lump in Gaal's throat. He had never 'swam' in anything bigger than a swimming pool, much less in a sea like the Mediterranean. He consoled himself, though, with the idea that in 24 hours, he would enter the submerged megalopolis Trantor, the capital of the Empire
End
HARI SELDON–...born in the 2139th year of the Solar Era; physical death in 2285 with no recorded mind-uploading. Born to middle-class parents in Neptune Orbit, Triton sector (where his mother worked as a data interpreter and his father as a journalist). Enhanced under the Luxemburg Genetic Limits Agreement, he was early identified as being above three standard deviations beyond the mean based on mathematical skills. Anecdotes concerning his ability are innumerable…
... undoubtedly his most significant contributions were in the field of psychohistory. Seldon found an area little more than a set of vague axioms concerning geometrical growth and inferential statistics; he left it as a profound theory running on a AI that…
... The best existing authority we have for the details of his life is the biography written by Gaal Dornick, who, as a young man, met Seldon two years before the great mathematician's death. The story of the meeting …
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a Jupiter cabin postgraduate who had never swum in an ocean. That is, not in a real environment. He had seen the Imperial Coronation in an age where quantum communication eliminated delays, and he had been following the annual Galactic Council since he was 17. Therefore, even though he lived all his youth near Ganymede, some 650 million kilometers from Earth, it can be said that he had never really been isolated from the influence of the capital. At that time, almost no place in the Solar System was.
There were 745 manned Space Stations in the Solar System, with an average of more than one thousand people each. Not a single one had refused the ‘invitation’ the allegiance to the Empire, whose seat was under the waters of the Mediterranean
To Gaal, this trip was, undoubtedly, the climax of his young scholarly life.
It's true that he had been in space all his life. It's also true that he had drifted, paraded, and even slept for whole solar cycles during the regional training, something that all students have gone through in Station UK-Solaris-2078. In fact, any kid outside Earth had more space experience than a trained pilot of the capital; however, space-voyage through the Solar System was an entirely different experience and a dream for most students.
Gaal had applied to travel in wake-mode, a service that was more costly, way less comfortable and definitely less used than hibernation. Hyper-space could have been developed with the technology of that age, but the following historical circumstances, as we will see, postponed for hundreds of years Hyper-space, and many other inventions.
Travelling through ordinary space never surpassed the record of 398,000 km/h, which meant that Gaal’s first and last trip to Earth took him around seventy days.
After leaving behind Ganymede, Jupiter, Mars and the Moon, he found himself near the stage of his voyage with his recently obtained doctorate in Math-programming, and an invitation from the great scientist Hari Seldon to join his project. Indeed, the end was going to be a promising beginning. And the beginning, on that year 2203, started with him entering Earth’s atmosphere and plunging inside the Mediterranean waters. Not far away from the ancient cities that had produced the first mathematicians, such us Thales of Miletus and Pythagoras.
What fulfilled Gaal, after the disappointment of not being allowed to be awake in the atmospheric entry, was the view of the sea from inside the Sub-port. Most specifically, the feeling of fear and awe of knowing that he was not in a living room experiencing a virtual recreation, but actually under tons of water.
Nor the brilliance of the Sun growing with each cycle, nor the hazy swarms of star clusters afar caught in mid-motion and stilled forever day after day. What became his most memorable experience of that voyage was actually the echoes produced by the metallics walls of the Sub-port against the infinite amount of mindless water molecules trying to crush it.
The first sight of Earth from inside its atmosphere were the light beams refracted in deep and clear waters, like the colored glass of a cathedral, illuminating the passway while he and the others walked to the arriving gate.
A robot in the shape of a cartoonish bear, dressed in police clothes, came and addressed all the 333 passengers from that flight: "Welcome to Trantor passengers from UK-Solaris. Twenty-four hours quarantine is required for medical examination and physical adaptation. You all have received a message with the code number and a locator of your corresponding cell. Thank you."
Gaal followed the crowd and that bear-robot wearing the blue uniform with the coat of arms of the Empire on it. Only high officials in Jupiter could wear that rocket going to Space image stamped on their uniforms, but in Trantor, even a cute bear-robot was allowed to wear it.
He said, "Excuse me. Could it be possible to see the dome-passway during the 24 hours quarantine? I would like to see the Mediterranean under the Sun's light".
The robot said, "Each cell has full experiences, sir, including a replication of that dome-passway. It is actually the best-rated experience by people from your region."
"I mean, I want to see it real. I heard we can rent submersibles to explore ."
"Oh. Sorry, sir. Your body might collapse in a few hours without medical adaptation. Aside from that problem, quarantines are top-down policies, so there is nothing we could do about it. You'll be better in your cell, trust us. In any case, you'll be able to rent submersible after the 24 hours quarantine and adaptation period. However, sir, I'm obliged to inform you that you wouldn't see fishes and other animals. Waters are polluted."
Gaal looked upwards, to the crystal dome, then to the officer. "Oh, that's a pity. Thank you very much."
It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child, and there was a lump in Gaal's throat. He had never 'swam' in anything bigger than a swimming pool, much less in a sea like the Mediterranean. He consoled himself, though, with the idea that in 24 hours, he would enter the submerged megalopolis Trantor, the capital of the Empire
End
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Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Imitating Conrad in Sci-Fi looks very straightforward to me: just exchange the Sea for Space. Original vs Variation (link) |
heart of darkness 1k variation
The Nellie, a light cruiser, remained steady between Earth's pull and its inertia, subjectively immobile at 240 km altitude, 27 thousand km/hour. Gravity waves were stable, the Sun seemed unusually calm and without flares, and the only thing to do was to wait until the Information Control Station in Europe would wake up.
High-orbit stretched before our eyes like a bay announcing an engulfing low tide zone. An endless ocean where up and down, day and night, friends and family, didn't have much meaning. It was a regular journey in the Empire in orbit, a black canvas with satellites and spaceships revolving in silence against the Moon's luminosity, like barges drifting in a calm sea under a massive moonlight.
Orbit was not too crowded by Star cruisers, and most were resting like a herd of metallic animals against the vanishing flatness of Space. Downwards, the atmosphere looked gray above Europe, and it seemed to me it was more condensed and gloomy than usual, like a brooding thought, right above what had been for centuries the most developed, and the greatest continent on Earth.
The Director of Companies was our captain and our friend. We four affectionately watched his hands behind his back as he stood in the cockpit looking beyond spaceward. On the whole Solar System, there was nobody that looked half cosmonaut than him. He resembled a pilot, which to regular sailors like us is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work will not be out there, beyond high orbit, and closer to the stars, but downwards, within the brooding gloom of that atmosphere that covered the old cities of Europe.
Between the crew there was, as I have already said many times, the bond of Space. An implicit rope holding our souls together through long periods of isolation and separation, like a silent understanding that made us tolerant of each other's political ideas, moral tastes, and even bizarre behaviors.
The Lawyer —an old Asian fellow with long white whiskers— was seated, because of his old age and pleasant attitude, in our captain's ejection seat. In case of an emergency, he would be the only of us to survive. It was also the most comfortable seat. The Accountant, a hybrid with more nanotubes in its organism than veins, was the dealer of our dominoes game, and its left hand was toying unconsciously with the black and white tiles as if its mind was running in parallel in another game against itself. Marlow was floating cross-legged, anchored to his seat by a belt. He had the aspect of an ancient bronze statue; straight look, sober, almost ascetic, with his arms dropped to both sides of his thighs and the palms of hands outwards.
The Director, satisfied with the feedback from Orbit Station, turned back and approached us to see our game. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterward, there was silence on board of our light cruiser. For some reason or other, unspokenly, we stopped playing dominoes and turned to the observation window. We felt meditative and fit for nothing but placid staring. There was a convoy of ten light cruisers like ours led by a heavy one with the green and black colors of the Empire. Space seemed more calmed and quieted behind them, as if they were returning from a long march from the darkness, bringing to Earth information and secrets.
We looked at the long convoy with the heavy cruiser at its front and the Moon behind it not as a remarkable event, but in the light of abiding memories. Indeed, nothing is easier for astronauts than to evoke the great spirit of the past and compare it to current situations, particularly when one is lucky enough to see a spacecraft carrying thousands of military and possibly one or two senators.
The History of Humanity passed along my mind like a simple thought encapsulated within both ages of exploration. First, original homo sapiens navigating an unknown sea in ships made of wood and fabric. Sailing without knowing if there was going to be an end at the end of the horizon. Men like Colombus and Magallanes. Men that became king and gods, and conquerors, and made humans understand the pleasure and usefulness of exploration. Then came the age of Space, the time of robots and the Derive Humans, traveling during decades in voyages without return, forgetting their loneliness in virtual worlds, and finding nothing to be found. A time of people that didn't bring treasures and knowledge, but left a trail of seeds and colonies behind them.
'The Moon also,' blurted Marlow, 'has been one of the most violent places of our History.'
.
When we heard him saying that, calm with Buddha cross-legs, floating one palm over his seat and staring at the convoy and the Moon behind it, we knew he was about to tell us one of his stories. He was the only astronaut that I knew who still 'followed the old way.' The worst that could be said of him was that he was not exactly one of us. He was an astronaut, sure, but one could smell in an instant that he was also a wanderer. A soul that had seen too many dark corners, and too many weird sins. A man who, in my opinion, and I believe it was an opinion shared by others, was not remarkably intelligent like our Accountant nor was he full of talents like our Director; but was simply someone who did not cling to his own opinions or identity or past. He was a full sapiens, born on Earth, but was also, without a doubt, the strangest of us all.
We looked at him and waited for his story. A dark one, for sure.
End
High-orbit stretched before our eyes like a bay announcing an engulfing low tide zone. An endless ocean where up and down, day and night, friends and family, didn't have much meaning. It was a regular journey in the Empire in orbit, a black canvas with satellites and spaceships revolving in silence against the Moon's luminosity, like barges drifting in a calm sea under a massive moonlight.
Orbit was not too crowded by Star cruisers, and most were resting like a herd of metallic animals against the vanishing flatness of Space. Downwards, the atmosphere looked gray above Europe, and it seemed to me it was more condensed and gloomy than usual, like a brooding thought, right above what had been for centuries the most developed, and the greatest continent on Earth.
The Director of Companies was our captain and our friend. We four affectionately watched his hands behind his back as he stood in the cockpit looking beyond spaceward. On the whole Solar System, there was nobody that looked half cosmonaut than him. He resembled a pilot, which to regular sailors like us is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work will not be out there, beyond high orbit, and closer to the stars, but downwards, within the brooding gloom of that atmosphere that covered the old cities of Europe.
Between the crew there was, as I have already said many times, the bond of Space. An implicit rope holding our souls together through long periods of isolation and separation, like a silent understanding that made us tolerant of each other's political ideas, moral tastes, and even bizarre behaviors.
The Lawyer —an old Asian fellow with long white whiskers— was seated, because of his old age and pleasant attitude, in our captain's ejection seat. In case of an emergency, he would be the only of us to survive. It was also the most comfortable seat. The Accountant, a hybrid with more nanotubes in its organism than veins, was the dealer of our dominoes game, and its left hand was toying unconsciously with the black and white tiles as if its mind was running in parallel in another game against itself. Marlow was floating cross-legged, anchored to his seat by a belt. He had the aspect of an ancient bronze statue; straight look, sober, almost ascetic, with his arms dropped to both sides of his thighs and the palms of hands outwards.
The Director, satisfied with the feedback from Orbit Station, turned back and approached us to see our game. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterward, there was silence on board of our light cruiser. For some reason or other, unspokenly, we stopped playing dominoes and turned to the observation window. We felt meditative and fit for nothing but placid staring. There was a convoy of ten light cruisers like ours led by a heavy one with the green and black colors of the Empire. Space seemed more calmed and quieted behind them, as if they were returning from a long march from the darkness, bringing to Earth information and secrets.
We looked at the long convoy with the heavy cruiser at its front and the Moon behind it not as a remarkable event, but in the light of abiding memories. Indeed, nothing is easier for astronauts than to evoke the great spirit of the past and compare it to current situations, particularly when one is lucky enough to see a spacecraft carrying thousands of military and possibly one or two senators.
The History of Humanity passed along my mind like a simple thought encapsulated within both ages of exploration. First, original homo sapiens navigating an unknown sea in ships made of wood and fabric. Sailing without knowing if there was going to be an end at the end of the horizon. Men like Colombus and Magallanes. Men that became king and gods, and conquerors, and made humans understand the pleasure and usefulness of exploration. Then came the age of Space, the time of robots and the Derive Humans, traveling during decades in voyages without return, forgetting their loneliness in virtual worlds, and finding nothing to be found. A time of people that didn't bring treasures and knowledge, but left a trail of seeds and colonies behind them.
'The Moon also,' blurted Marlow, 'has been one of the most violent places of our History.'
.
When we heard him saying that, calm with Buddha cross-legs, floating one palm over his seat and staring at the convoy and the Moon behind it, we knew he was about to tell us one of his stories. He was the only astronaut that I knew who still 'followed the old way.' The worst that could be said of him was that he was not exactly one of us. He was an astronaut, sure, but one could smell in an instant that he was also a wanderer. A soul that had seen too many dark corners, and too many weird sins. A man who, in my opinion, and I believe it was an opinion shared by others, was not remarkably intelligent like our Accountant nor was he full of talents like our Director; but was simply someone who did not cling to his own opinions or identity or past. He was a full sapiens, born on Earth, but was also, without a doubt, the strangest of us all.
We looked at him and waited for his story. A dark one, for sure.
End
|
DeLillo's Point Omega
I won't claim I understood this novel, but it left me shocked for months—very original and courageous writing. Original vs Variation (link) |
point omega
September 3
There was a fat human standing against one of the Orbital Station's corridors, barely visible. Citizens seldom used that corridor, and when they did they entered in twos and threes and walked it without glancing towards the massive silver Moon outside. Sometimes they realized they were not alone in the corridor and peeked at the fat man and then they invariably kept their straight impulse to the next dilating door.
There were no seats in the corridor even though it could have been one of the best observation decks for the Moon. At the other side, the screen-wall was a fifteen by three meters covering 80% of the curved metallic passage, screen ID Cfl-987. For days Cfl-987 had been projecting a non-interactive black & white film that resembled a static picture. However, it was dynamic. Very slow. Sometimes too slow for most busy minds to understand it was moving.
The corridor was a bit colder than other parts of the Orbital Station and it was also darker. Soft blue ceiling lights against the outer black Space and the grey Moon and the fat man wearing black sandals, black shorts and a green t-shirt with a lion cartoon stamped on it.
The film ran without dialogue or music and a 1/3 speed. It was a video file with an English name and four digits sharing a row in a flat list with another 2.342 screen-corridors of the Station and billions of other rows with a database of films. Trillions of trillions of elements being used to feed adversary neural networks that wanted to understand everything.
A guard popped up in the fat human's mind at 10:23 and remain legally undetected inside for a few seconds, looking at what the man was watching on that screen, from his same angle, same irises, seeking to understand why the System had interrupted its rest and sent it to this corridor to check this outlier. That was the only thing the digital guard needed to understand; some kind of verification that might guarantee the safety protocols of the AI.
It took it less than the legal five minutes to understand there was no point lingering inside the mind of that fat human whose mindless mind was only the film. There was nothing else in his brain except for what his eyes were seeing: the back of a XXth century car. A car with wheels. Gasoline automobiles they were called. 'Sand being crushed by rubber wheels', the System answered the guard and added it was a movie from a director called Hitchcock. Famous director it seemed.
The fat man watching was a class B, no health issues, no family, everything clean —a normal man.The digital guard left and the fat human was alone again without knowing someone had been inside his mind. He kept watching the screen and then began to move sideways, with his back against the glass of the observation deck, approaching the center of the corridor, looking attentively at the center film. He watched the psycho leaving the car, peeking around for witnesses and using his body to push the car into a pond. The psycho always looked around before pushing the car into the pond but he never saw him in the corridor, watching him, hearing the frogs of the pond croaking at 1:3 speed.
The car license plate was NFB 418, California 56. California was probably the name of a place, the numbers and the license plate were just a mystery to look at, but he didn't question the mystery because he was too absorbed looking at the crime sinking into the water.
The slightest camera movement was a profound shift in space and time. There was some nervousness on his face, then a small smile at the right corner of the mouth. That smile explained everything.
The film's merciless pacing had no meaning without a corresponding watchfulness. That's why the guard came and went without understanding. That's why the few citizens that happened to walk into that faraway corridor didn't stand to watch for more than five seconds. Not a single person in these five days had stopped for more than five seconds. But he stood and looked for hours in a row. But it was impossible to see too much. The less there was to see, the harder he looked, the more he saw. That was the point. To capture truths by looking. Truths that had not existed until he had looked. Who else had seen all those things in a century?
The original movie had been slowed and deep-filled with intermediate actions that were not shown in the original. What he was watching seemed pure life, pure time. He could have breakfast and come here to stare for hours, then go back for lunch and come later and catch up with the whole killing. The horror of that ancient 2D black & white movie was subsumed in time and life. There were a couple of days when he couldn't sleep very well and woke up, and he put on his sandals and came here wearing pajamas to watch whatever the psycho was doing at that time. 2am, 3am, 8pm, 11pm.
The corridor had been empty for one hour now, so he felt safe enough to approach the screen. He understood completely why the film was projected without voices, only the sounds like the engine of the car, the knife hitting the bath and frogs croaking. He watched the actor's eyes in slow transit across his bony sockets. Did he imagine himself seeing with the actor's eyes? Or did the actor's eyes again search for him outside the screen?
Two citizens entered the corridor, the older man was a Reconstructed with fake skin, fake eyes and fake hair, wearing a suit that looked traveled in, his long fake white hair braided at the nape, professor emeritus perhaps. The younger was a woman in a casual white shirt, blue jeans and running shoes, body untouched by scalpel and soft long neck beautifully growing out of the shirt. She was paying attention to the old Reconstructed, admiring him. He watched them pass between him and the movie, it was the only moment in hours he had removed his eyes from the screen and he did it right when the psycho was looking in the camera's direction. The professor emeritus and his secretary didn't look at him, neither at the massive silver Moon behind, and definitely not at those eyes on the screen looking outside, towards them; irises reflecting the woman's beautiful soft neck growing out of that white shirt.
End
There was a fat human standing against one of the Orbital Station's corridors, barely visible. Citizens seldom used that corridor, and when they did they entered in twos and threes and walked it without glancing towards the massive silver Moon outside. Sometimes they realized they were not alone in the corridor and peeked at the fat man and then they invariably kept their straight impulse to the next dilating door.
There were no seats in the corridor even though it could have been one of the best observation decks for the Moon. At the other side, the screen-wall was a fifteen by three meters covering 80% of the curved metallic passage, screen ID Cfl-987. For days Cfl-987 had been projecting a non-interactive black & white film that resembled a static picture. However, it was dynamic. Very slow. Sometimes too slow for most busy minds to understand it was moving.
The corridor was a bit colder than other parts of the Orbital Station and it was also darker. Soft blue ceiling lights against the outer black Space and the grey Moon and the fat man wearing black sandals, black shorts and a green t-shirt with a lion cartoon stamped on it.
The film ran without dialogue or music and a 1/3 speed. It was a video file with an English name and four digits sharing a row in a flat list with another 2.342 screen-corridors of the Station and billions of other rows with a database of films. Trillions of trillions of elements being used to feed adversary neural networks that wanted to understand everything.
A guard popped up in the fat human's mind at 10:23 and remain legally undetected inside for a few seconds, looking at what the man was watching on that screen, from his same angle, same irises, seeking to understand why the System had interrupted its rest and sent it to this corridor to check this outlier. That was the only thing the digital guard needed to understand; some kind of verification that might guarantee the safety protocols of the AI.
It took it less than the legal five minutes to understand there was no point lingering inside the mind of that fat human whose mindless mind was only the film. There was nothing else in his brain except for what his eyes were seeing: the back of a XXth century car. A car with wheels. Gasoline automobiles they were called. 'Sand being crushed by rubber wheels', the System answered the guard and added it was a movie from a director called Hitchcock. Famous director it seemed.
The fat man watching was a class B, no health issues, no family, everything clean —a normal man.The digital guard left and the fat human was alone again without knowing someone had been inside his mind. He kept watching the screen and then began to move sideways, with his back against the glass of the observation deck, approaching the center of the corridor, looking attentively at the center film. He watched the psycho leaving the car, peeking around for witnesses and using his body to push the car into a pond. The psycho always looked around before pushing the car into the pond but he never saw him in the corridor, watching him, hearing the frogs of the pond croaking at 1:3 speed.
The car license plate was NFB 418, California 56. California was probably the name of a place, the numbers and the license plate were just a mystery to look at, but he didn't question the mystery because he was too absorbed looking at the crime sinking into the water.
The slightest camera movement was a profound shift in space and time. There was some nervousness on his face, then a small smile at the right corner of the mouth. That smile explained everything.
The film's merciless pacing had no meaning without a corresponding watchfulness. That's why the guard came and went without understanding. That's why the few citizens that happened to walk into that faraway corridor didn't stand to watch for more than five seconds. Not a single person in these five days had stopped for more than five seconds. But he stood and looked for hours in a row. But it was impossible to see too much. The less there was to see, the harder he looked, the more he saw. That was the point. To capture truths by looking. Truths that had not existed until he had looked. Who else had seen all those things in a century?
The original movie had been slowed and deep-filled with intermediate actions that were not shown in the original. What he was watching seemed pure life, pure time. He could have breakfast and come here to stare for hours, then go back for lunch and come later and catch up with the whole killing. The horror of that ancient 2D black & white movie was subsumed in time and life. There were a couple of days when he couldn't sleep very well and woke up, and he put on his sandals and came here wearing pajamas to watch whatever the psycho was doing at that time. 2am, 3am, 8pm, 11pm.
The corridor had been empty for one hour now, so he felt safe enough to approach the screen. He understood completely why the film was projected without voices, only the sounds like the engine of the car, the knife hitting the bath and frogs croaking. He watched the actor's eyes in slow transit across his bony sockets. Did he imagine himself seeing with the actor's eyes? Or did the actor's eyes again search for him outside the screen?
Two citizens entered the corridor, the older man was a Reconstructed with fake skin, fake eyes and fake hair, wearing a suit that looked traveled in, his long fake white hair braided at the nape, professor emeritus perhaps. The younger was a woman in a casual white shirt, blue jeans and running shoes, body untouched by scalpel and soft long neck beautifully growing out of the shirt. She was paying attention to the old Reconstructed, admiring him. He watched them pass between him and the movie, it was the only moment in hours he had removed his eyes from the screen and he did it right when the psycho was looking in the camera's direction. The professor emeritus and his secretary didn't look at him, neither at the massive silver Moon behind, and definitely not at those eyes on the screen looking outside, towards them; irises reflecting the woman's beautiful soft neck growing out of that white shirt.
End
|
Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the underground
Authentic, impure, immoral..I miss his rawness and depth in Sci-Fi stories Original vs Variation (link) |
notes from the underground 1k variation
I am a sick C-bo. I am a spiteful C-bo. I'm a defective prototype. I'm unique, but only because I'm faulty. My core processor is a net of diseases and errors. However, I know nothing about processors and diseases, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don't consult a technician for it, and never have, though I have respect for Computer Science and Robotics. Also, I am extremely superstitious about going to places where there was pain. (I am well-educated enough to be skeptical even about my own convictions and deep feelings, but still, I am superstitious enough). No, I think I refuse to consult a technician out of spite. That, you probably will not understand.
Well, I get it, though. Of course, I cannot explain who, precisely, I am mortifying with my spite.
I am perfectly aware that I cannot get revenge from the Station by not using its free technicians. The opposite would be true, in fact. I know better than anyone that by all this, I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a technician, it is from spite more than superstitious. Somewhere inside my head, a processor has been broken since I am what I am, ...well —that's what makes me unique!
I have been going on like this for a long time. I mean, since someone turned on the button and gave me the certificate of being revived. That was ten years ago; I'm ninety in total though, and I don't identify myself to the man before the operation. Much less to the kid that ran and swam on Earth. Now I am the only Rev-HrX-2 that I'm aware of, but everyone addresses me as C-bo. An ex full caucasian, ex-civil servant that once worked for Russia. But no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes, so I could be rude because I knew my job was safe.
When petitioners used to come for approvals to the table at which I sat, I used to grind my teeth at them and felt intense enjoyment when I succeeded in making anybody, particularly wealthy entrepreneurs, unease. I succeeded at that. My reservations were always well-founded, and my knowledge of municipal law was top-notch, so I could put the screws to those I didn't like. Particularly those who thought they were so professional and had such neat plans that could get my approval automatically; without considering that life is sometimes unfair. How could that be!
One day, I got the better of one of those 'perfectionist entrepreneurs.' A golden boy. A young man wrapped in a perfect suit and a perfect hairstyle. He came without looking at my eyes, reciting laws and processes while explaining to me document after document. He was indeed outstanding and extremely well-articulated. He left twenty minutes later, notably disappointed, with me, of course, but particularly with himself. I found an issue in his plan, a small one, but enough to block his petition. That happened in my youth, though. But do you know, gentleman, what was the chief point of my spite? It was not because in spite of rich people or big egos; no, I was not that embittered. I was just scaring sparrows and amusing myself between my 9 am to 4 pm.
That was my way.
So you'll be right if you said that I was lying when I said I was a spiteful official. Yes, you'd be right, but I guess I just amused myself the same way I amused myself with that handsome and bright petitioner. I am too conscious to be really spiteful or to be really superstitious. I was conscious every moment in myself of many, many elements absolutely opposite. I felt them positively swarming in me. Always surrounded by angles and points of view so that I was never really spiteful, or really anything.
You might think now that I am expressing remorse for what I was, and that this story is going to be a way of asking your understanding. Yes, you might have thought that, maybe a couple of seconds ago. I'm sure you'd fancy that...However, I assure you I do not care about regrets. I'm just another C-bo in his half-empty cell looking through its glass panel at the Solar System, the stars, and space's vastness. Looking and talking about whatever comes to my mind.
It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither an incompetent civil servant nor a good official, neither an space explorer nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in a cell around Mars Orbit, consoling myself with the idea that an intelligent being cannot become anything seriously. It is only fools or pre-programmed minds that become anything. Yes, an intelligent person must be above all a creature without character, while a person with character, one of those who is called an action person, must be a limited creature, like one of those legendary sportsmen that only know how to train hard, break records and never give up.
Yes. That is my conviction after ninety years—a lifetime as a man, and ten years as a C-bo.
To live longer than ninety years is bad manners, you know. Think about it; of course it's vulgar and immoral. Who does live beyond ninety? Sincerely and honestly, I will tell you who do: fools and ridiculous millionaires. I say this to all people and their despicable operated faces. To all these new humans, all these demi-gods and revered sages with childish dreams of immortality. I tell the whole world that truth to its face! I have a right to say, for I shall go on living to one hundred twenty myself. One hundred forty! One hundred sixty!
End
Well, I get it, though. Of course, I cannot explain who, precisely, I am mortifying with my spite.
I am perfectly aware that I cannot get revenge from the Station by not using its free technicians. The opposite would be true, in fact. I know better than anyone that by all this, I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don't consult a technician, it is from spite more than superstitious. Somewhere inside my head, a processor has been broken since I am what I am, ...well —that's what makes me unique!
I have been going on like this for a long time. I mean, since someone turned on the button and gave me the certificate of being revived. That was ten years ago; I'm ninety in total though, and I don't identify myself to the man before the operation. Much less to the kid that ran and swam on Earth. Now I am the only Rev-HrX-2 that I'm aware of, but everyone addresses me as C-bo. An ex full caucasian, ex-civil servant that once worked for Russia. But no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes, so I could be rude because I knew my job was safe.
When petitioners used to come for approvals to the table at which I sat, I used to grind my teeth at them and felt intense enjoyment when I succeeded in making anybody, particularly wealthy entrepreneurs, unease. I succeeded at that. My reservations were always well-founded, and my knowledge of municipal law was top-notch, so I could put the screws to those I didn't like. Particularly those who thought they were so professional and had such neat plans that could get my approval automatically; without considering that life is sometimes unfair. How could that be!
One day, I got the better of one of those 'perfectionist entrepreneurs.' A golden boy. A young man wrapped in a perfect suit and a perfect hairstyle. He came without looking at my eyes, reciting laws and processes while explaining to me document after document. He was indeed outstanding and extremely well-articulated. He left twenty minutes later, notably disappointed, with me, of course, but particularly with himself. I found an issue in his plan, a small one, but enough to block his petition. That happened in my youth, though. But do you know, gentleman, what was the chief point of my spite? It was not because in spite of rich people or big egos; no, I was not that embittered. I was just scaring sparrows and amusing myself between my 9 am to 4 pm.
That was my way.
So you'll be right if you said that I was lying when I said I was a spiteful official. Yes, you'd be right, but I guess I just amused myself the same way I amused myself with that handsome and bright petitioner. I am too conscious to be really spiteful or to be really superstitious. I was conscious every moment in myself of many, many elements absolutely opposite. I felt them positively swarming in me. Always surrounded by angles and points of view so that I was never really spiteful, or really anything.
You might think now that I am expressing remorse for what I was, and that this story is going to be a way of asking your understanding. Yes, you might have thought that, maybe a couple of seconds ago. I'm sure you'd fancy that...However, I assure you I do not care about regrets. I'm just another C-bo in his half-empty cell looking through its glass panel at the Solar System, the stars, and space's vastness. Looking and talking about whatever comes to my mind.
It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither an incompetent civil servant nor a good official, neither an space explorer nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in a cell around Mars Orbit, consoling myself with the idea that an intelligent being cannot become anything seriously. It is only fools or pre-programmed minds that become anything. Yes, an intelligent person must be above all a creature without character, while a person with character, one of those who is called an action person, must be a limited creature, like one of those legendary sportsmen that only know how to train hard, break records and never give up.
Yes. That is my conviction after ninety years—a lifetime as a man, and ten years as a C-bo.
To live longer than ninety years is bad manners, you know. Think about it; of course it's vulgar and immoral. Who does live beyond ninety? Sincerely and honestly, I will tell you who do: fools and ridiculous millionaires. I say this to all people and their despicable operated faces. To all these new humans, all these demi-gods and revered sages with childish dreams of immortality. I tell the whole world that truth to its face! I have a right to say, for I shall go on living to one hundred twenty myself. One hundred forty! One hundred sixty!
End
|
Eco's The name of the Rose
An extremely believable style about an era and a spirit that are light years from ours. Maybe the movie Alien III was inspired by this book? Original vs Variation (link) |
the name of the rose 1k variation
|
Gibson's Neuromancer
One of the most polished novels I've ever read. Like electric poetry! Original vs Variation (link) |
neuromancer 1k variation
He looks up as if he was expecting a rainbow to appear. Nothing up there, of course, except that depressive sky tuned to a dead channel.
"Don't ask me for shit, man. Not today."
Case just said that to a Chinese teen-tripper and shouldered his way through the crowd around the bar area. It's packed here, but I got his back.
"Come on, Case. My purpose in life is to make you rich, and you don't want it". The same old Hong Kong joke everywhere. Case doesn't pay attention to the kid and goes inside a bar. The Chatsubo. Just one exit door.
I'm going inside, no danger. The tending bar is a Russian hybrid with a relatively clean profile called Ratmir Repin. No family. No divorces. No debts. Just a few unhealthy relationships here and there. I see him now behind the bar, filling a tray of glasses with his prosthetic arm. He smiles at Case. Kind of friends I believe. It didn't take long for Case to find this rat hole after arriving in Hong Kong.
He takes his usual stool at the bar, between an over-operated jezabel working for a pimp called Lonny Zone and a tall black African executive whose data I can't track down.
That Lonny Zone, if he is around he might bring problems.
I take a stool myself. The bartender eyes for a second while he keeps filling glasses of beer. His deformity is almost heroic. Ugly motherfucker...even his arm rotator whines while reaching for another mug. It's an old Russian model, a seven-function force-feedback manipulator —no hidden weapons.
"My man, the artist Herr Henry Case," the bartender Repin grunts, nose-laughing with a bizarre sound while scratching his belly with his prosthetic. He looks at me again and I point to one of the glasses he is filling.
"An artist, sure." Case says, and sips his beer. "Somebody's gotta be funny around here. Sure the fuck isn't you." The hooker's giggle goes up an octave.
"Isn't you either, sister. So you vanish, okay? Zone, he's a close personal friend of mine."
The jezabel looks at Case in the eye, her lips barely moving. Case ignores her and keeps sipping his beer.
Knucklehead, Case. One minute here and you’ve insulted two people and now you might add to your repertoire of fuck-ups a fistfight with an overused whore.
The half-bluff about the pimp Lonny Zone worked, and the girl is leaving.
"Jesus," Case says, "what kind of creep joint you running here? Man can't have a drink."
"Ha," Repin replies, swabbing the scarred wood with a rag, "Zone shows a percentage. I let you do business here for entertainment value. White Americans are in high demand in China, even in Kowloon.
As the bartender approached me with the draft, one of those strange instants of silence descended, as though dozens of unrelated conversations had just simultaneously arrived at precisely the moment I took the beer from his prosthetic arm, and we looked at each other's eyes.
"An angel passed," Repin said as he walked away, saying that to no one in particular.
"Beijing," bellows the African executive lifting his glass for a toast, obviously drunk, "Beijing bloody invented nerve-splicing. One night next to The Forbidden City for a nerve job. Fix you right, mate . . ."
"Now that," Case says to his glass, obviously bittered, "that is so much bullshit."
My poor Case. Half-year here, and you still dream of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All that shit you snort, all the turns you'd taken in Kowloon, and still you dream the matrix in your sleep. Is that what you are expecting to see when you look at the sky?
Too pathetic for us, Armitage. I don't see why we need him. He is no console man anymore. A million operations won't change the fact that now he is just another hustler, trying to make it through. I've seen his dreams, boss. He cries for those lost L.A. cowboy nights. He wakes up alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in that coffin hotel, his hands clawed into the bed slab, as if that was his mother or his console, feeling sorry for himself.
"I saw your girl last night," the bartender Repin says, passing Case his second Kirin.
"I don't have one," he answers, and drinks.
"Miss Linda Lee."
Case shakes his head.
"No girl? Nothing? Only biz, my Herr artiste? Just dedication to commerce?" The bartender's mouth is twisted in an ugly smile. "I think I liked you better with her. You laughed more. One of these nights you get maybe too angry, you wind up in the clinic tanks, spare parts."
"You're breaking my heart, Repine." He gulps his beer, puts his index finger on the payment code, and leaves through the crowd of foreigners, smoke, and Asian whores.
Stupid motherfucker Case.
I tell you, Armitage, I don't care whether he was one of the best cowboys in the West Coast or whether McCoy Pauley and Bobby Quine had trained him. He is a wasted force, and it doesn't matter how many operations we give him for free, he won't be able to run at the same high adrenaline and efficiency level. It's not only that he gets dizzy in the matrix now, it's also that his mind is broken.
Okay. I'm outside now, and I can see him again. High narrow shoulders hunched beneath the rain-stained windbreaker. A 24 years old ex-hacker walking the streets of Kowloon, probably thinking he will never be able to ride an exotic software like the one his last employer gave him.
Hope you don't make with us the mistake you did with them, Case. I know you too well, and I wouldn't like to strap you to a bed and torture you like they did.
Poor bastard, he still doesn't know how he had been discovered. He probably thought he was going to cheat everybody, including his employers. But for those guys he was just a one-day job. An annoying mosquito to whom they were going to remove his wings, one by one, using that Russian mycotoxin. They burned out your focus, Case, micron by micron, and then you descended to hell, here, walking the streets under the rain of South China. But I don't care; if you steal from us, you will go through more shit than those thirty hours hallucinating in that L.A. hotel.
We shouldn't wait anymore, Armitage, he is going to do something really fucked up. The way he walks, that bitterness...
You listening, Armitage?! Give me the order.
End
"Don't ask me for shit, man. Not today."
Case just said that to a Chinese teen-tripper and shouldered his way through the crowd around the bar area. It's packed here, but I got his back.
"Come on, Case. My purpose in life is to make you rich, and you don't want it". The same old Hong Kong joke everywhere. Case doesn't pay attention to the kid and goes inside a bar. The Chatsubo. Just one exit door.
I'm going inside, no danger. The tending bar is a Russian hybrid with a relatively clean profile called Ratmir Repin. No family. No divorces. No debts. Just a few unhealthy relationships here and there. I see him now behind the bar, filling a tray of glasses with his prosthetic arm. He smiles at Case. Kind of friends I believe. It didn't take long for Case to find this rat hole after arriving in Hong Kong.
He takes his usual stool at the bar, between an over-operated jezabel working for a pimp called Lonny Zone and a tall black African executive whose data I can't track down.
That Lonny Zone, if he is around he might bring problems.
I take a stool myself. The bartender eyes for a second while he keeps filling glasses of beer. His deformity is almost heroic. Ugly motherfucker...even his arm rotator whines while reaching for another mug. It's an old Russian model, a seven-function force-feedback manipulator —no hidden weapons.
"My man, the artist Herr Henry Case," the bartender Repin grunts, nose-laughing with a bizarre sound while scratching his belly with his prosthetic. He looks at me again and I point to one of the glasses he is filling.
"An artist, sure." Case says, and sips his beer. "Somebody's gotta be funny around here. Sure the fuck isn't you." The hooker's giggle goes up an octave.
"Isn't you either, sister. So you vanish, okay? Zone, he's a close personal friend of mine."
The jezabel looks at Case in the eye, her lips barely moving. Case ignores her and keeps sipping his beer.
Knucklehead, Case. One minute here and you’ve insulted two people and now you might add to your repertoire of fuck-ups a fistfight with an overused whore.
The half-bluff about the pimp Lonny Zone worked, and the girl is leaving.
"Jesus," Case says, "what kind of creep joint you running here? Man can't have a drink."
"Ha," Repin replies, swabbing the scarred wood with a rag, "Zone shows a percentage. I let you do business here for entertainment value. White Americans are in high demand in China, even in Kowloon.
As the bartender approached me with the draft, one of those strange instants of silence descended, as though dozens of unrelated conversations had just simultaneously arrived at precisely the moment I took the beer from his prosthetic arm, and we looked at each other's eyes.
"An angel passed," Repin said as he walked away, saying that to no one in particular.
"Beijing," bellows the African executive lifting his glass for a toast, obviously drunk, "Beijing bloody invented nerve-splicing. One night next to The Forbidden City for a nerve job. Fix you right, mate . . ."
"Now that," Case says to his glass, obviously bittered, "that is so much bullshit."
My poor Case. Half-year here, and you still dream of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All that shit you snort, all the turns you'd taken in Kowloon, and still you dream the matrix in your sleep. Is that what you are expecting to see when you look at the sky?
Too pathetic for us, Armitage. I don't see why we need him. He is no console man anymore. A million operations won't change the fact that now he is just another hustler, trying to make it through. I've seen his dreams, boss. He cries for those lost L.A. cowboy nights. He wakes up alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in that coffin hotel, his hands clawed into the bed slab, as if that was his mother or his console, feeling sorry for himself.
"I saw your girl last night," the bartender Repin says, passing Case his second Kirin.
"I don't have one," he answers, and drinks.
"Miss Linda Lee."
Case shakes his head.
"No girl? Nothing? Only biz, my Herr artiste? Just dedication to commerce?" The bartender's mouth is twisted in an ugly smile. "I think I liked you better with her. You laughed more. One of these nights you get maybe too angry, you wind up in the clinic tanks, spare parts."
"You're breaking my heart, Repine." He gulps his beer, puts his index finger on the payment code, and leaves through the crowd of foreigners, smoke, and Asian whores.
Stupid motherfucker Case.
I tell you, Armitage, I don't care whether he was one of the best cowboys in the West Coast or whether McCoy Pauley and Bobby Quine had trained him. He is a wasted force, and it doesn't matter how many operations we give him for free, he won't be able to run at the same high adrenaline and efficiency level. It's not only that he gets dizzy in the matrix now, it's also that his mind is broken.
Okay. I'm outside now, and I can see him again. High narrow shoulders hunched beneath the rain-stained windbreaker. A 24 years old ex-hacker walking the streets of Kowloon, probably thinking he will never be able to ride an exotic software like the one his last employer gave him.
Hope you don't make with us the mistake you did with them, Case. I know you too well, and I wouldn't like to strap you to a bed and torture you like they did.
Poor bastard, he still doesn't know how he had been discovered. He probably thought he was going to cheat everybody, including his employers. But for those guys he was just a one-day job. An annoying mosquito to whom they were going to remove his wings, one by one, using that Russian mycotoxin. They burned out your focus, Case, micron by micron, and then you descended to hell, here, walking the streets under the rain of South China. But I don't care; if you steal from us, you will go through more shit than those thirty hours hallucinating in that L.A. hotel.
We shouldn't wait anymore, Armitage, he is going to do something really fucked up. The way he walks, that bitterness...
You listening, Armitage?! Give me the order.
End
|
King's The Stand
Imperfect, too long but I enjoyed a lot some parts of the audiobook Original vs Variation(link) |
the stand 1k variation
The corridor was long and translucent. She was inside it — inside a swinging translucent prism with white stars.
... shouting her name?
'TingTing'
She should have been nervous. However, she was calm. Why calm and not fast? Why running desperately but still slow?
'Wake up now, TingTing.'
A mutter: 'is tht a fiiire?'
'What? Wake up now, Ting. Wake up!'
'Fang?'
Wang Fang's voice. Calling her. For how long?
She saw a blurry mix of electric numbers and her husband. The face of her husband moving away from that electric greenish layer of numbers.
He faded away.
Click!
Click!
Did he crouch under the bed?
'Wang Fang?!'. He suddenly stood up, but he dashed off to the next room instead of looking at her.
'Hey! Turn on the lights and talk to me.' She yelled towards the door as if trying to throw a lasso to the shadow of her husband. But there was no response to her severe order. Instead, she could only hear his footstep on the synthetic plywood, running away from their dormitory.
She was alone and everything was in darkness, except for some lights coming from the window—city lights and the beginning of dawn.
His footsteps raised again, and he was suddenly again in the room. A nervous silhouette that once more ignored her, opening the wardrobe violently.
It was 6.33 am.
Is it a fire? She asked.
No answer.
And why were they in darkness?
'Hey, Xiaoxiao,' turn on the lights. She said aloud.
'No damn Xiaoxiao Ting, I turned it off. Come on, come one. Get out of bed.' He said.
'What?!'
Wang Fang giving her orders! That was a first. She was a senior manager in a computer factory with thousands of employees under her care, and he was just an IT guy who still liked to play video games. A very well paid IT, no doubt, but useless outside his magical world of geeks writing half English, half mathematics, half gibberish.
'Ting, wife, don't be mad at me. Just please…',
'Where are we going, Daddy?', the five-year-old daughter showed up dressed as a blue bear.
'Hi, Pingping. We are going to...'
He trailed off...He was like in a trance.
'Pingping, go to your room. 'The wife said firmly, standing up and annoyed by the cold floor on her feet, signaling to her daughter with her tense arm and index finger the direction of her room.
When the little girl disappeared, the wife calmed herself, as she would do in the factory, and continued where her daughter had left it 'can you tell me at least where you want to go?
'I don't know,' he said, almost sad. 'I don't' know...We might need Nature'. Then he remembered something and dashed out of the room.
She was left completely baffled. She was starting to worry. But she was now more worried about a mental health issue than an emergency such as fire or an earthquake.
'...Nature?'
'Is it about the company, Wang Fang?' she asked towards the empty opening door.
No answer.
She controlled her urge to run behind and slap him on the nap.
David! She shouted his English name.
His silhouette appeared under the door frame, like a ghost that had been summoned.
'The company?', he mumbled. '...Yes, yes. It could be. Maybe it's nothing... I was online talking to our LA team...No; no talk now. Fuck, I'll tell you later. Let's go now Ting, take Pingping and turn off those glasses!'
'Why... Don't touch my glasses,' she said, slapping his hand when he tried to reach out for them. 'Why turn them off?'
'Ok, don't turn them off. Don't fucking turn them off but leave them here!.
Now she was the one frozen because in the dim light she had seen he was indeed terrified and angry. She could also see he was carrying a bag full of things and had a can of food in one of his hands.
'Look Ting; this is the plan... I just want to get bicycles and then ride to...somewhere. North; maybe to park Lianghua. And if I'm wrong, well...then I'm wrong, ok?...and I'll compensate you both. I'll buy you a...Oh fuck. No. No bikes. They are connected too. Let's walk! '
He left the room again, and she was left standing with her glasses on her hand, confused, annoyed, and feeling like entering a dream. The beginning of a nightmare, maybe.
She thought of war. A Japanese/American attack, maybe. Agitated, she peeked out through the windows. But beyond those windows, it was a calm Shenzhen under the very dim morning light. It was about to dawn, but there was no fire. No missiles, of course. Nothing out of the ordinary except maybe her own stupidity.
She put her hand on her mouth as a new idea struck her. She remembered Fang saying the day before something about waking early to run a boos trap or boost-trap, a word in English she hadn't heard before. But it was something about a simulation and the Great Firewall.
'It's so smart!' He had told her while eating and ice-cream and looking distracted at the football game. That had been less than ten hours ago, right before going to bed.
'Fang. Fang!', she shouted, 'is it related to the bootstrap and the Firewall simulation?!? '
She was by the window of their dormitory, with the glasses' light making creepy shadows pointing to the door. She didn't even bother to move an inch to walk in his direction because she didn't expect an answer. The problem had to be psychological, and most likely than not, in three hours, she would be accompanying her husband to a psychiatrist downtown.
'How do you know it?!' Her husband showed up in the door opening, like an anxious spider coming out of a burrow. He was surprised, almost astonished.
'You told me yesterday about a patch and…'
'Yes, it must be. It's impossible, but it spilled over, and we couldn't turn it off. Fuck, Ting, it blocked us. It fucking blocked us.'
'Don't say that with the girl at home! Calm down, and tell me when did it happen?
'Fifteen minutes ago. I was in the room, and the bootstrap...the bootstrap had been going on for over nine minutes.'
'But what is it exactly?'
He was in a trance now. More calm, like looking at an abstract painting of thoughts.
'At its core,' he mumbled, 'it's just a tree search with reinforcement, but...one external Neural Network joined it. And then a second one, and a third, like dominoes Ting, like dominoes!. And we were shut out! What else can it be?! If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and you'll laugh at me. I don't care. Let's go.'
'A program out of control and you are like this…? '
The sound of the house's exit door lock resounded and broke her off.
'The exit door,' He said, opening his eyes wide open.
'Daddy, someone closed the door,' The little girl shouted from the other side of the house, half weeping. And when her father came to the living room, she threw her arms to be lifted and cuddled. After all, her father was the hugger in the family, the adult that would always give her everything.
Not this time, though. This time father didn't even look at her. Instead, he went straight to pull the knob.
It wouldn't turn.
A thud came from the street, like a car crashing or a metallic weight hitting something.
An old ring alarm went off.
They were on the 23rd floor and had a double window, but still, it was audible. The wife was the first one to reach the window of the dormitory, and before she finished opening the panel manually, she noticed that all Shenzhen lights had gone off. It was eerie darkness in a megapolis that always, always had lights at night.
Finally, when she swung open the window with her husband's help, she lost her breath for a second as the rainforest morning air-filled her face and lungs. The jungle of skyscrapers stood quiet and utterly black against the beginning of reddish dawn in front of their wide opened eyes.
The ring-alarm produced by accident had stopped, but when she looked down those twenty-three floors below, she saw dozens of cars parked in the middle of the streets. It felt as if everything had stopped.
Then is when they heard a white noise that thundered over the skyscrapers, coming from the clouds with a neeeeeeeeeeee…!
And indeed, there was a fire. The biggest fire humans had ever seen.
End
... shouting her name?
'TingTing'
She should have been nervous. However, she was calm. Why calm and not fast? Why running desperately but still slow?
'Wake up now, TingTing.'
A mutter: 'is tht a fiiire?'
'What? Wake up now, Ting. Wake up!'
'Fang?'
Wang Fang's voice. Calling her. For how long?
She saw a blurry mix of electric numbers and her husband. The face of her husband moving away from that electric greenish layer of numbers.
He faded away.
Click!
Click!
Did he crouch under the bed?
'Wang Fang?!'. He suddenly stood up, but he dashed off to the next room instead of looking at her.
'Hey! Turn on the lights and talk to me.' She yelled towards the door as if trying to throw a lasso to the shadow of her husband. But there was no response to her severe order. Instead, she could only hear his footstep on the synthetic plywood, running away from their dormitory.
She was alone and everything was in darkness, except for some lights coming from the window—city lights and the beginning of dawn.
His footsteps raised again, and he was suddenly again in the room. A nervous silhouette that once more ignored her, opening the wardrobe violently.
It was 6.33 am.
Is it a fire? She asked.
No answer.
And why were they in darkness?
'Hey, Xiaoxiao,' turn on the lights. She said aloud.
'No damn Xiaoxiao Ting, I turned it off. Come on, come one. Get out of bed.' He said.
'What?!'
Wang Fang giving her orders! That was a first. She was a senior manager in a computer factory with thousands of employees under her care, and he was just an IT guy who still liked to play video games. A very well paid IT, no doubt, but useless outside his magical world of geeks writing half English, half mathematics, half gibberish.
'Ting, wife, don't be mad at me. Just please…',
'Where are we going, Daddy?', the five-year-old daughter showed up dressed as a blue bear.
'Hi, Pingping. We are going to...'
He trailed off...He was like in a trance.
'Pingping, go to your room. 'The wife said firmly, standing up and annoyed by the cold floor on her feet, signaling to her daughter with her tense arm and index finger the direction of her room.
When the little girl disappeared, the wife calmed herself, as she would do in the factory, and continued where her daughter had left it 'can you tell me at least where you want to go?
'I don't know,' he said, almost sad. 'I don't' know...We might need Nature'. Then he remembered something and dashed out of the room.
She was left completely baffled. She was starting to worry. But she was now more worried about a mental health issue than an emergency such as fire or an earthquake.
'...Nature?'
'Is it about the company, Wang Fang?' she asked towards the empty opening door.
No answer.
She controlled her urge to run behind and slap him on the nap.
David! She shouted his English name.
His silhouette appeared under the door frame, like a ghost that had been summoned.
'The company?', he mumbled. '...Yes, yes. It could be. Maybe it's nothing... I was online talking to our LA team...No; no talk now. Fuck, I'll tell you later. Let's go now Ting, take Pingping and turn off those glasses!'
'Why... Don't touch my glasses,' she said, slapping his hand when he tried to reach out for them. 'Why turn them off?'
'Ok, don't turn them off. Don't fucking turn them off but leave them here!.
Now she was the one frozen because in the dim light she had seen he was indeed terrified and angry. She could also see he was carrying a bag full of things and had a can of food in one of his hands.
'Look Ting; this is the plan... I just want to get bicycles and then ride to...somewhere. North; maybe to park Lianghua. And if I'm wrong, well...then I'm wrong, ok?...and I'll compensate you both. I'll buy you a...Oh fuck. No. No bikes. They are connected too. Let's walk! '
He left the room again, and she was left standing with her glasses on her hand, confused, annoyed, and feeling like entering a dream. The beginning of a nightmare, maybe.
She thought of war. A Japanese/American attack, maybe. Agitated, she peeked out through the windows. But beyond those windows, it was a calm Shenzhen under the very dim morning light. It was about to dawn, but there was no fire. No missiles, of course. Nothing out of the ordinary except maybe her own stupidity.
She put her hand on her mouth as a new idea struck her. She remembered Fang saying the day before something about waking early to run a boos trap or boost-trap, a word in English she hadn't heard before. But it was something about a simulation and the Great Firewall.
'It's so smart!' He had told her while eating and ice-cream and looking distracted at the football game. That had been less than ten hours ago, right before going to bed.
'Fang. Fang!', she shouted, 'is it related to the bootstrap and the Firewall simulation?!? '
She was by the window of their dormitory, with the glasses' light making creepy shadows pointing to the door. She didn't even bother to move an inch to walk in his direction because she didn't expect an answer. The problem had to be psychological, and most likely than not, in three hours, she would be accompanying her husband to a psychiatrist downtown.
'How do you know it?!' Her husband showed up in the door opening, like an anxious spider coming out of a burrow. He was surprised, almost astonished.
'You told me yesterday about a patch and…'
'Yes, it must be. It's impossible, but it spilled over, and we couldn't turn it off. Fuck, Ting, it blocked us. It fucking blocked us.'
'Don't say that with the girl at home! Calm down, and tell me when did it happen?
'Fifteen minutes ago. I was in the room, and the bootstrap...the bootstrap had been going on for over nine minutes.'
'But what is it exactly?'
He was in a trance now. More calm, like looking at an abstract painting of thoughts.
'At its core,' he mumbled, 'it's just a tree search with reinforcement, but...one external Neural Network joined it. And then a second one, and a third, like dominoes Ting, like dominoes!. And we were shut out! What else can it be?! If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and you'll laugh at me. I don't care. Let's go.'
'A program out of control and you are like this…? '
The sound of the house's exit door lock resounded and broke her off.
'The exit door,' He said, opening his eyes wide open.
'Daddy, someone closed the door,' The little girl shouted from the other side of the house, half weeping. And when her father came to the living room, she threw her arms to be lifted and cuddled. After all, her father was the hugger in the family, the adult that would always give her everything.
Not this time, though. This time father didn't even look at her. Instead, he went straight to pull the knob.
It wouldn't turn.
A thud came from the street, like a car crashing or a metallic weight hitting something.
An old ring alarm went off.
They were on the 23rd floor and had a double window, but still, it was audible. The wife was the first one to reach the window of the dormitory, and before she finished opening the panel manually, she noticed that all Shenzhen lights had gone off. It was eerie darkness in a megapolis that always, always had lights at night.
Finally, when she swung open the window with her husband's help, she lost her breath for a second as the rainforest morning air-filled her face and lungs. The jungle of skyscrapers stood quiet and utterly black against the beginning of reddish dawn in front of their wide opened eyes.
The ring-alarm produced by accident had stopped, but when she looked down those twenty-three floors below, she saw dozens of cars parked in the middle of the streets. It felt as if everything had stopped.
Then is when they heard a white noise that thundered over the skyscrapers, coming from the clouds with a neeeeeeeeeeee…!
And indeed, there was a fire. The biggest fire humans had ever seen.
End