Chapter Two
Histories
I know what caused the problem but finding it will be like finding a single needle in an infinite number of almost identical hay stacks. People never learned how to use memory properly. You know, those kind who make copy after copy of the same file for editing, or move a whole bunch of files using copy and paste rather than cut and paste. Ugh! But wait, did you ever know someone who insisted on backing up their data on the same drive. Thinking about that always cheers me up. Well it’s been a long time since we used computers. Now we use extra dimensions to store data. It’s great, you don’t need physical memory cluttering up your space-time. And, since extra dimensions are everywhere, data you want to access is almost literally in your brain. We have perfected methods for protecting our brains from the continuous onslaught of data bombarding it from multiple directions in hyperspace. It’s also amazing how easy the solution is. All you need to do is take ordinary foil wrap, the kind they used to use for sandwiches, and fashion a thin helmet out of it. You can wear it under a baseball cap so no one sees it, they aren’t very fashionable.
You were buying that for a minute. That’s great I’m almost in tears. Oh, wait, wait. For a split second I didn’t feel the Ache. Oh well. I was serious when I said we can store data in hyperspace and access it with our minds, just fucking with you about the aluminum hat. It never gets old. So, we haven’t had computers or any other storage devices for about 20 years. The thing is, people use hyperspace like they used to use hard drives. It’s un-fucking believable. Just dump copy after copy of the same thing all over without a care in the world. You know that old saying “It makes my head hurt just thinking about it”? Well, now that isn’t just a saying. This causes physical pain, an increase in the Ache level. I never understood the details of hyperspace computation but what I do know is that our ability to access data anywhere out of thin air is pretty spooky. That has to be the one technological advancement that is unbelievable to me. It really seems like people are psychic. And a little schizoid, walking around staring off into space talking to themselves. The really cool thing is that we are NOT storing physical devices in the extra dimensions. No, no. We are using space-time, actually the hyper-space portion, as a physical medium. I can’t get used to this, it really makes my skin tingle when I think about it.
The last great advancement in computers was the use of DNA as a physical medium for data storage and processing. This was circa, mmm let me think, 2020. At first scientists were trying to map binary data to the geometric orientation of the bases, but then it was realized that we really had a natural mechanism for doing base 4 math rather than base 2. The binary came from mapping numbers to high and low voltage and processing 2 valued logic. Learning how to use DNA to store data was a real achievement. Actually this is exactly what nature does. It stores information in you, me, and all life. So, for a while we would artificially construct DNA strands and encrypt photos, videos, old tax forms, you name it. We would code this meaningless junk in DNA and let it coil up and poof, it’s microscopic. You could even store it in your body, and many people did for personal security. Nothing bad ever happened, there are no side effects since robust safety mechanisms were implemented and they were fail safe. No, no human ever had their “hard drive” reproduce inside them, but the ability to do this led to a bizarre practice. Someone eventually figured out a way to inject one of these bio-drives as we called them into an embryo and let it grow into god only knows what. It was sick but extremely amusing. Try to imagine what your data would create if it were turned into a life form. You have to get creative because a picture of you will not grow into a replica of you. The A-T-G-C sequence does not get interpreted that way. They started selling kits to make your own “pet” at home using this technology. Sometimes, actually most of the time, you would get a blob, just a big lump of useless cells about the size of a small dog that would sit there and make a stain on your floor. But one day someone decided to encrypt about 150 years of digitized porn in DNA and see what kind of creature it created. Believe it or not this one was useful, a very efficient organic super computer. You see most people store a random collection of crap with no meaningful correlation between data elements. All your vacations and family holiday pictures don’t have as much in common as you think, in addition to being infected with tax forms and other text files, etc. But porn has a consistent, …, rhythm to it. A lot of the same exact scenes and repetitive action. So that created a very ordered DNA sequence and from that a rather intelligent pseudo-being. An industry was spun off from this but didn’t last long. The problem wasn’t that the computer couldn’t keep it up, ha ha. No, it became self-aware rather fast. That was one of the darkest events in human history. Long story short, it was “turned off” and the process was made illegal. This event was the first time that an international committee was organized to make a collective decision about what to do and that lead to the WGO. You’re a good listener but I’m getting too engrossed in this history lesson. Probably because I’m still a little nervous about our “issue”.
Another problem is that people seem to not want to reuse copies in the arcade. Everyone wants their own. There’s no such thing as a hyperspace disease. You won’t catch anything by using a used copy. But the customer is always right. So people have accounts and copies are linked to their account. We won’t make multiple copies of one thing for one customer but each customer wants their own copy of each experience. As a result of this there are googles worth of hyperspace copies everywhere. Is it making your head hurt yet?
Well, because of this memory issue and the multiple copies of everything I’ll never be able to determine exactly what initial condition to reset. At least not by inspection. I’ve written a program that will parse through everything and locate the issue. This will take a few days to a week to run. We’ve got some time to wait and see what needs to be reset, then I reset it and everything is back to normal. The program, by the way, also runs in hyperspace. Again, my skin tingles. We are not storing computers in hyper-space we are using hyper-space as a medium for storage and processing. No need for solid state physics anymore! We killed a lot of technology with this discovery. Everything is in the ether, pun intended. I don’t know about you but I feel much better, like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. We just have time to kill. Coffee? I think the first thing I want to do is find some information about the world as it seems to be right now.
I’ve been so engaged in this problem and bringing you up to speed I really haven’t looked around my office or the arcade facility. It looks like everything is the same. Things are in different places than I expected but otherwise everything is here. I’m here, same clothes, more or less same body. Face? Wow! What happened to my hair? Short hair, hate it. And a beard, like lumber jack, hate it. But underneath, it seems to be the same. I’m guessing that whatever happened, the result is a small perturbation since so much is the same. The arcade is here and I was able to deploy a process in hyperspace so I guess things work much like they used to. So, I should be able to access hyper-memory and see what’s out there, or in there. Like “surfing the web” for ancient peoples. I can project this into our space so we can view the data. Now what to search on. Coffee.
“Search, where to get coffee.”
The following phrase appears floating in space like a hologram.
“Coffee may be purchased at Stubb’s Coffee. There is an average of approximately 0.0700001 Stubb’s per capita, or one per every 14.2857 persons, in the Royal Commonwealth of America.”
Huh, that’s weird. What’s Stubb’s? “Elaborate: Stubb’s Coffee, wait, system vocalize.” My eyes hurt.
A voice recites.
“Stubb’s Coffee, founded in 2176 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Commonwealth of America, is a popular chain of coffee shops. Stubb’s sells a variety of food and beverages as well as a variety of roasted coffee in bulk. More?”
“No. Directions, nearest Stubb’s.”
“Searching… You are currently in a Stubb’s Coffee.”
What? Fuck me upside-down. I’m in my office in the arcade. I see nothing other than that which I expect to see, more or less. I guess it’s time to leave the nest. There’s only one door.
Devan opens the door to leave his office.
*****
“Hey, Devan! How’s it going in there?” Says a man who seems to know me and is dressed like a barista.
“Uh, good I guess.”
“Did you come out for a pick-me-up?”
“Yes, yes I did.”
“Alright then, your usual?”
“Sure.”
“Well, come over, sit for a while. Do you have any gamers in there still, or are you done for the day?”
“Uh…, done. Definitely done.”
“Well alright man.”
I’m looking around and trying to figure out what’s going on and it hits me. Pure genius. An arcade in a coffee shop. Why didn’t we think of that? Pure genius. But who’s this guy, he seems familiar. Is he a friend with a funky hairdo like me, himself but a little different?
Devan stares at him for a few seconds and a name pops up.
“Jacob.”
“Yes?”
“Ah, yeah, Jacob.”
“Ah, yeah, what?”
“Nothing, hard day. Thanks for the coffee man.”
“You want coffee? What happened to you in there? You’re always going on and on about how horrible coffee is, they shouldn’t sell it in such an advanced society. It serves no purpose, etc., etc.”
“Well, a guy can change right? I’d like to try a large coffee.”
“Sure man. One Fat Stubby to fill you up, coming up.”
Does he have to call it that? So his name is Jacob. I know a Jacob but he isn’t a coffee house employee. He’s a neurosurgeon. Ah, my coffee.
“Here you go. I know what you mean about a hard day. This morning I performed three neuro-transmitter bypass procedures and a partial limbic tissue transplant. One of the transmitter bypass patients fell into a coma. I’ve been feeling very guilty, inadequate, since then.”
Ok, so Jacob is a neurosurgeon who works in a coffee shop. He looks pretty upset. How do I ask him about working in a coffee shop without seeming… well, stupid and insensitive?
“So, Jacob. Does it ever get easier working two jobs?”
Jacob laughs. “Whatever, man. Don’t be an asshole.”
“Sorry, that was stupid.”
“Hey you’d better hurry if you’re going to make your lecture. But stop by after and we’ll go listen to Einstein’s talk again. I need to be cheered up.”
“You got it. So, what am I studying?”
“You’re so sarcastic man. I don’t have the energy to fight you on it. Be nice to your class, don’t take it out on them.”
So, now I’m teaching a class in something. “Hey Jacob! What’s the quickest way there?”
“Out the door. Right, right, left. You better not miss it.”
Yeah, thanks for the vague directions. Well, out we go. Oooooh-kaaaaaay. Why is there nothing outside? It’s pitch black, so black it looks infinite and zero-dimensional at the same time. No streets, or trees, or traffic, but also no sky. I might have expected to walk out among the stars like in the beginning of the old twilight zone episodes. What am I supposed to do? Walk?
“Hey! You mind getting on with it, there’s a line behind you.”
“Sorry, sorry. Just having a bad day and kinda got lost.”
“Where you going?”
“Giving a lecture at the … University (?).” I hope that makes sense.
“Right, right, left, c’mon.”
I assume he means turn 90 degrees to my right, repeat, then 90 degrees to my left, all while standing in the same place. Ok, here goes. Wow, how disorienting. When I move I suddenly see things flying past my field of view, very nauseating. How ‘bout you, you get the same thing? No? So, ok, now I seem to be at a door. Open, aaaaand.
*****
There’s intense chatter among small groups dispersed throughout the classroom. Everyone is so engrossed in their discussion they don’t notice Devan when he enters. The first thing that Devan notices is that everyone is fit and muscular, and very beautiful. Each person looks almost like a work of art, sculptured into ideal physical representations of a human. He also notices a tremendous degree of ethnic or racial diversity among the students. In Devan’s reality race doesn’t exist as a result of hundreds of years of globalization and interracial marriage. Everyone is more or less light brown with brown hair and brown or hazel eyes. There are slight deviations, straight or curly hair, big or small nose, but everyone looks more or less the same. Devan has never seen a black person before, except in historical archives. He’s never seen a white person either, truly white as in Teutonic, with blond hair and blue eyes. Distinct East Asian features don’t exist anymore either. The world Devan grew up in had achieved racial homogeneity by people doing as they will, finding each other in a global society. In his world this is heralded as one of the great consequences of freedom and globalization, the elimination of race and by extension racism. Here, however, people are racially diverse and racially distinct, having all the stereotypical characteristics that distinguish one race from another. They’re also dressed in ancient ethnic clothing. At least that is how it appears to Devan relative to his experience. Devan stands quietly, listening, searching for a clue about the topic of his lecture. Everything being said is incomprehensible to Devan. They’re speaking a language he understands but the concepts are meaningless. This continues for more than a minute when someone finally recognizes him.
“Professor Anderson! We were just discussing your analysis on the moral imperative of ignorance.”
Just let that sentence sink in. I… I don’t know what to think. My brain is going to implode. I guess this is a philosophy class. I don’t know anything about philosophy but I know those words together cannot make sense. Hey, I guess I do know philosophy. Ok, cut the sarcasm.
“Right! Yes! The… moral imperative.” I’m sounding too William Shatner, pull it back.
“That is ah…, what do you conclude regarding, the moral imperative?”
One student speaks out.
“Professor, we have no conclusion regarding this moral imperative. You have provided the conclusion. We were discussing its necessity for maintaining social homogeneity.”
“Well, that is true. But, isn’t the point of philosophy to learn the intellectual tools necessary for critical thinking? To analyze and conclude for yourself what is the nature of truth.” I’m on a role, I think.
Another student shouts from the back of the class.
“The nature of truth?! What does that even mean?”
The class begins to bubble with quiet murmuring, and giggling. It’s a relaxed and amused atmosphere. The student continues.
“The point of philosophy is to express your individual experiences in a clear, concise, self-consistent and unambiguous manner, so that others may experience them as their own in a faithful representation within their own mind.
Ok, wow. That sounded quite scientific. Almost like the definition of a mathematical term in a text book. This guy has a very technical view of the world. But what about right and wrong, the nature of self-awareness, whether or not the soul exists, the mind-body problem. I’d better continue engaging them.
“That is an excellent presentation of the meaning of philosophy, faithful one might say.”
The audience laughs. They seem to be hanging on Devan’s every word and action. There is real admiration. Devan continues.
“But what about the analysis of experience. It’s one thing to give an experience a faithful linguistic representation but quite another to understand the experience and its meaning. How does one reconcile certain experiences with other experiences or with one’s own world view? What about murder, rape, forced religious conversion, war and the colonization of underdeveloped countries by world super powers? In fact how does one give a faithful linguistic representation to death as a personal experience?” Damn I’m good, that rolled off with no effort.
Members of the class look genuinely perplexed, bewildered, looking at each other for a clue, a hint regarding Devan’s unintelligible statements. A young woman speaks out.
“Professor, are you having one of your headaches?”
“Yes, perhaps I need a neuro-transmitter bypass.”
Devan’s statement breaks the tension and the class laughs. Devan, trying to find any excuse to end this, continues.
“Well class, is there anything else I should know before we call it a day?”
“Just don’t forget to review and approve or reject our doctoral theses. We need to start doing our fine arts thesis work in a couple weeks.”
“Right, thanks for the reminder. Boy you guys are busy little overachievers. Got tiger moms?”
Wow, that last comment was pretty offensive. Look at their faces.
“Sorry, I take that back. Neuro-transmitter thing.”
*****
Devan leaves the lecture hall, reverses his steps and enters the coffee house. He tries not to encounter Jacob for a while as he digests everything that has happened. Reflecting on the experience in the lecture hall he recalls a few things. First is the fact that everyone is so ethnically diverse. Devan found this very pleasing, fascinating, and wonders what they thought about his appearance. Another point that left a deep impression on Devan is that the students in his class are all getting doctoral degrees in some area of philosophy and moving on to acquire doctoral degrees in fine arts immediately afterwards. As this sinks in Devan is feeling a little inadequate, like a small fish in a big pond. It is still not clear to him exactly what the subject matter of the class he just left was, the class he was supposed to be teaching. Jacob approaches Devan.
“Hey, you look like you’re in shock.”
“Really.”
“Do you still want to go listen to Einstein’s lecture? It always cheers you up.”
“Can I ask you something, where is outside?”
“What do you mean?” Jacob says with a slight giggle.
“I mean, why, when I open that door is there nothing?”
“There’s everything! I’m getting worried about you. You haven’t acted this strange since you were working on your doctoral thesis in Improvisational Turkish Saz Performance.”
“I remember that! Right?”
“Look come to the clinic tomorrow and I’ll get you a neuro-transmitter conductivity scan. There’s probably nothing wrong but it couldn’t hurt to run the test.”
Devan, looking at Jacob thinks silently to himself, of course it could hurt, it could kill me you butcher. Devan then decides to confide in Jacob.
“Jacob, we’ve been friends for a while, right?”
“Are you kidding? Since childhood man.”
“I want to talk to you about something. Can you come with me to the arcade?”
“Yeah, wait a sec.” Jacob then calls out to another barista. “Hey Allyson, can you cover me for a little while?”
“Sure? No problem. Does Einstein ever get boring?”
“You tell me. Are you ever bored of hearing Crick talk about DNA?”
Jacob turns to Devan, “Come on Devan, talk to me.”
*****
They enter the arcade and Devan closes the door behind them. As Devan tries to find the words to express what has happened he suddenly feels calm. Why has all this new information and changes in his world been so stressful, almost personal? None of this is real. Devan’s world is waiting to be reset in a little while and he has really nothing to fear. All of this is just a technicality, like waiting in line at the DMV for a license. An annoyance but not a problem. He realizes that it doesn’t really matter if he tells Jacob, or not, since at the end of it all this will never have happened in the world he knows. But now that he started he figures he may as well finish.
“Jacob, an error occurred today with the arcade game.”
“Alright, well what’s the problem? Everything seems ok.”
“To you maybe, but…, this version of reality is not consistent with the reality I know.”
“Man, you’re going to have to be more precise. I don’t really follow you.”
“None of this is what I’m used to. For example I love coffee! I was perplexed when you were surprised by that earlier. Um, I’m not a philosophy professor! And, aaah, there’s no such thing as Stubb’s and you, you are a neurosurgeon.”
“Yes, I am. Wow, that’s interesting.”
“No, no I mean that’s all you are, you don’t work in a coffee house. And why, why is there no outside?!”
“Just relax, man. You know I am also a trained therapist so let’s just talk this out.”
“No, no you don’t. Don’t pull that…” I’m freaking out again after I just decided that none of this mattered. “Jacob, pretend I’m a visitor, from another place or another time. Pretend I’m an alien…”
“Not too difficult right now but, go ahead.”
“Now you’re being an asshole. Just, let me ask you some questions and answer me as if my questions made sense.”
“Ok.”
“Ok. First, what’s with the doors in the place? Why, when I open the door to go outside is it just blackness, emptiness?”
“I’ll try to answer that the best I can, but I preface my answer with the fact that you are the expert in Interplanetary Transportation, so please don’t criticize my non-technical explanation.” Jacob sighs deeply and paces, looking at the floor. “I’m not sure how to describe all the technical aspects or where to begin but basically when you open a door to a structure… No that’s not right. Ah! There is an outside but it’s compressed in a sense. That’s what I meant when I said everything is there when you open the door. Some time ago travel became too costly to maintain. Not just local travel but interplanetary travel and intergalactic travel. Actually interplanetary travel was the first frontier of this technology. The space program was in trouble financially. So general relativists figured out a way to squeeze, compress, contort, I don’t know the proper terminology, but essentially make things work out in such a way that from any point in space one could access any other point in space. Or at least any one of a number of points in our solar system. Physics is your field alright, so I’m sorry if I’m butchering this. A network of combined locations was defined, space-time network nodes we call them. Attached to each node are a collection of volumetric bubbles each designed to house a particular facility, or location. Like, your home is one and work is another and everyone’s home is attached to their work! And…, ah! There is an algorithm for choosing which connected point you access from one point in the network. This is the right-left rotation sequence. Like when you went to the university from here by going right, right, left.”
“You’re right, you don’t really get it, but I know what you mean. So this was done for the space program to replace rockets, etc. How did it get applied to local travel, why can’t I just walk a block?”
“That was you. You scaled the solution from interplanetary travel to local travel as part of your thesis in Intergalactic Transportation. You proved scalability then came up with an engineering solution to make it work.”
“Why?”
“In part to get rid of the Ache. Do you have that in your version of reality?”
“Yes.”
“Well that was one reason. The other was to do away with all transportation vehicles and their energy sources. The uses of extra dimensions really did away with everything, computers were the first to go but eventually transportation. There’s almost no industry left but the hyperspace industry.”
“Ok, thanks. I had another question but now I’m distracted. How many doctorates do I have?”
“The same as everyone. Four.”
“Why?” I sound like a child.
“Because that’s the law. All citizens of the commonwealth are required to obtain four doctorates. Two in technical fields, one theoretical the other applied. One humanities degree and one fine arts degree. Once education is complete you take up a trade or common job. Mine, barista. Yours, arcade operator.”
There’s that word again, commonwealth. I heard it earlier but it went over my head. Commonwealth.
“Commonwealth?”
“Yes. Before you ask, we live in the Royal Commonwealth of America.”
“Right. As much as I’d like a history lesson I remembered my other question. The students in my class, they looked… Well, they didn’t look like people that I’m used to seeing. They were very ethnic, if that makes sense.”
“It does, but what else would they be? Everyone has an ethnicity. You’re Scandinavian. I’m Persian. What did you expect?”
“Well, I don’t know. No one knows their race or ethnicity. Actually such concepts do not exist. Centuries ago people had some clue. My family was Scandinavian, as my last name suggests. But also Native American, Navajo specifically, Ethiopian and Korean. But after a while it just became too difficult and frankly uninteresting to track one’s ethnic history. So we stopped.”
“That’s not how things are here Devan. It’s just the opposite. Now, can I ask you a question? How much is different. Other than what we’ve discussed?”
“At first not much. I was drinking coffee and suddenly it turned into tea. That was it. When I came out things were quite a bit different and kept getting…” Devan giggles. “Different-er. It seems like everything is different.”
“Is this hyper-dimensional interference? I recall you discussing that often as a concern back in school.”
“No, no that’s not it. But good idea. No, I am certain that it is an incorrect initial condition in one of the copies.”
“That sounds pretty minor. Could that cause so many major changes? Sounds like the butterfly effect.”
“No, this is just the uncertainty principle in our world. Uncertainty in the quantum gravity states in a sense. When an event is singled out and held in a coherent state one becomes uncertain as to which history led to that event. When we’re resetting games we keep track of our history and make sure that the initial condition reset comes along with a complete history reset. We can do this by allowing the uncertainty to be expressed in extra dimensions we create. We take advantage of this to maintain complete coherence in our space-time. It is not the same effect as hyper-dimensional interference. That would cause all sorts of disjoint data to be fused or overlapped. That would be extremely disconcerting, true chaos in every sense of the term. No, when I accidentally created a different state in the here and now and committed the reset, an alternate history was also pulled out of the space-time states. This happened because I wasn’t tracking a history for the incorrect initial conditions. I fucked up.”
“Sounds like it. I don’t know what to think of all that. It’s suspicious that you are the only one who knows this. I feel like this is the correct reality for me and I wouldn’t want it reset. I still think you should come to the clinic for a neuro scan.”
I think I made a mistake confiding in Jacob. Now I sound like a nut case and he clearly doesn’t believe me. Why did I let this get to me? We already decided that we just need to wait for the program to run, identify the incorrect initial condition, we reset and we’re back where we belong and everything is fine. This is like a vacation. Treat it like one. I’ll pacify Jacob to diminish his suspicion.
“Ok, I’ll do the scan. Let’s just keep this conversation between us for now.”
“You got it man. No worries.”