Nov 9, 2010

Me and Him ( Short Story 1)

Quake. Seems like an epidemic of quakes has hit us lately!

The holographic projectors of the real life Uniproj need to be saved... wait-no they don't, the shakerbot already took care of it, great aren't these little babies
fancy!


Ecos updates me like it is habituated to after each quake-"The year is 2321. The equinox has just ended and the day number is 143 as per the time sparser."

Guess all I need to do now is to beam up to the roof and wait there until the building figures out the best way to dance to these rhythms without damage. Wonder why did it get into critical mode at all? Isn't it supposed to be able to predict and correct for such occurrences? I ask my pulsor, that sets me up with the Ecos, which is the omniscient, omnipotent resource through the ecosub.

You might think I am not noticing you eavesdropping on my self-talk, and I am going to let you continue thinking that. Just with a warning, that you may listen but not interrupt my self-talk with your curious questions. How do I know you might want to do that? Really? You think you can eavesdrop on me without me already tapping into your brain? I can tell what you were thinking right now-like what on earth is a Uniproj or what is a quake or a shakerbot-well guess what-it isn't! On earth that is. Earth is in the process of over-hauling and re-air-conditioning, its a long story. I would tell you more details but trust me, right now I have lot bigger things to worry about than to entertain you or bring you up-to date on all the idiosyncrasies of this zone of the Verse. Quakes can be serious and can ruin everything! Get your own Pulsor and ecosub if you are so keen on learning about my Verse! So you are welcome to be a quiet unnoticeable guest, and please don't mind me continuing as if I am not being eavesdropped okay?


Ecos? Why was there an earthquake? As I wait for an answer from the ecosub personalized for me which my forefathers would have called an anthropomorphic projection, I noticed there was an unusual delay. I have never before seen ecosub so immersed in processing, their response time way surpasses human ones in speed, and I enjoy being challenged to keeep up with their speed. The quake did not seem to have done much damage and yet there was no apparent cause-the software alarms were all green, power grid was charged, and the neighbors online seemed okay too.

Suddenly I realize there is a moving figure, a strange person that is fashioned like antiquity-no functional suit, more like cotton or plastic coverings like they used to wear a couple hundred years ago.

Hello? Who is it ? Are you there? The man is befuddled at first, but then slowly walks to me. "Hello-my name is Adi and I am a computer science grad student at NYU", the man said in a funny accent. Startled, I nodded my head and welcomed him-did you cause the quake? "I am not sure really-what day is it today?". My ecosub picked up on the question and replied-" It is day 143, after the second vernal equinox! " The intruder did not seem to have a pulsor of his own, which was strange, I knew nobody in all of Viraama who had no Pulsor!

"Wow! Is that a Pulsor on your arm? I can't believe it-does it work-show me?" The man says as if he has never seen a pulsor-yeah right, for that he would have to be more than two hundred and fifty years old, since that is the time when the invention of pulsor went public. The man didn't seem that old, the anti-aging treatment only worked upto a hundred and seventy five so far! But then, I realized my pulsor hadn't really revealed it's exact date of conception or it's inventor despite it's encyclopaedic grasp on almost everything!

As he looked at the shining blue applet on my arm and started fiddling with it, suddenly the earthquake resumed-and this time it was accompanied by violent electric discharges which I had never seen before! Quickly I withdrew my arm and tackled him, only to realize he had a might which was unwieldy! I couldn't tackle him, and he started laughing like a baby!

Befuddled! Confused! Emotions I hadn't felt since childhood of which I remembered so little. What's going on? "Relax buddy! And congratulate me-I had a breakthrough today and I didn't realize the consequence of it would be so drastic!"

As he shuffled his hands suddenly the walls of my smartspace became transparent to reveal big rocky structures with flowing waters that I had never seen before, structures of exquisite beauty and poise-"These are the Rockies, has your pulsor educated you on these? Come let's take a walk in the snow as I bring you upto date." Upto-date? What is he talking about? "The time and date where I am from is actually February 14, 2020. For the past couple of years I had been working on creating a massive gaming environment which would be so immersive that players would not know it is a game. For the last couple of years a few of my friends have joined my effort and given it a real feel. In order to create this we had to hack up a code that violates Turing test as closely as mathematically possible, and enough beyond the biological comprehension of the brain. So even though technically we don't have machines that violate the laws of physics, we can fool the brain into thinking they are intelligent. The blueprint of the pulsor is just in animation stages yet and the fully functional model will only come about in another ten years or so we believe! Which is why what you have cannot really be a Pulsor-it is just in my team's imagination chamber so far!"

What? What? You're kidding right? That's a funny gig-I have had the pulsor since as long as I remember, and I am not a two year old kid! What are you talking about? How can you be in 2020 and interact with me-that would itself violate Godel's theorem about closed timelike curves and time travel!!! You're bluffing Mr. Theatre!
Thanks for the entertainment!

"Haha, I know it is hard to believe that people from the past would have an insight into the technology but what you forget is that time is also governed by biology.
And you are right, I am still in 2020, sitting at my neuro-projective interface and what you are seeing isn't really me, just my avatar with a full functional body. Just so happens that we found a hack to Godel's theorem-it does not apply to physical spaces, only mathematical possibilities among which the physical spaces evolve. So right now, I am fiddling with codes that hacked me into a projection of 2321 exactly as I had randomly punched in! You my friend is just a character in a game created by me!"

" What you see around you, even your own body, is just a projection. Like that Uniproj-which is just a fancy version of what we call TiVo back here in 2020. You have even lost track of your real body or feelings. Your real self will only be felt once you realize that you can rip the pulsor signals apart from your own internal signals. Until then the game will seem reality. Don't take me wrong, you still live in 2321, and we are three hundred years removed. You are just too lost in the game to realize that the gamer is not the game, and has the power to tweak it. Just a few years ago my friends thought it was impossible to create this world. Today is the day I am going to show them how wrong they were, if you allow me to tweak your pulsor!"

Pulsor? Tweak? Me? No way-stay away stranger! Very well played-how do I know you are not just another ecosub trying to mess with my head? You are the one talking a bunch of math violating mumbo and expect me to believe you? No way....wait let me check in with Ecos-"Ecos u there? Who invented the Ecos and the Pulsor?"

"In 2015, there was a young undergraduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Kaladi, called Adi, who bet his friends he could create an immersive game that would feel more real than reality,
and would infect the world so fast that he could get around Godel's theorems on time and computing both! I, Ecos am his brainchild and was only permitted to say this when he was present. Hello Adi, welcome on this side of the game! Make sure you don't get lost here"

No! NO! What does this mean for me? Am I just a game character? Am I just a figment of someone's imagination? Who am I really?

"Yeah buddy, good luck with that. Sometimes we back here in 2020 wonder the same questions. But we have the advantage of being real and not just an avatar in a game"

Really? How are you so sure? Maybe the immersive game of which you are a part of is so clever you can't even tell there is a gamer and he is not interested enough in you to reveal himself?! How do YOU know you are a gamer and not a game?

"........... Wait...no...don't.......ask................me.....that...If I can't answer that.......I would remain trapped here....for eternity.......like you .......don't ...........infect ................me.......please..............its Valentines..... night....please...... let me go!!!........."



Maybe it is too late-don't you realize who I am and how I got trapped here?
It is me-Adi-can't you recognize yourself across time?!

Did you not notice how startled I was to see you?
You must be kidding!

Wait! No NO NO more quakes... Wait!!! Really?

This is not a game!

But then what is this?

Who am I?

1 comment:

wahbhaiwah said...

This world is an eternal dream of bramha ..we are all the part of that dream.. Began as the imaginary characters of the dream, we forgot that the ego, the identity we think we are , is just a whirlpool of thought in the mind of somebody else.. Which simply does not exist