episode FORTY-SEVEN
The Whole Shebang.
Mr.
Dodgson slapped his hands together, licking his lips, and wagged his eyebrows
like bird wings, grinning at Seven and the automaton—his Charlotte Brontë model,
originally from the Looking Glass (and it troubled him, a little, of the
attitude the syn-sim was displaying, the little airs—or should he say eyres—the little digital wretch was
displaying, like she was going through something hormonal, and yet he knew
perfectly well that she had absolutely no hormones on board, not for any little
purpose)—and motioned for them to enter the darkened theatre. He could not help
himself, he did a little dance, wiggling his bottom, and performed a miniature and
shuffling tap dance. He even did a little bit of what was once popularly called
the Moon Walk. Seven grinned appreciatively.
“I
like to call this our Reality Theatre, or Reality 101,” Mr. Dodgson explained,
as the two females settled into the thick, luxurious lounge chairs. “I think
you may have had some experience with the VS chambers, what? Seven?”
“Yes,
I have,” she replied, missing her dear Inner Sanctum. She also missed how human
Charlotte had seemed, joining her there, back before beefing up for the
Punchinello assault.
“Well
this is like that, only better, because it is a directed experience, with all
the pyrotechnics of Old Hollywood, yes indeedy-do! Oh, what delights, Reality
101!”
“I
don’t understand, why one-oh-one?” Seven asked. “Wouldn’t it be simpler to say,
Reality One?”
“Yes,
yes,” Mr. Dodgson said, rolling his eyes and flapping his hands. “Of course it
would be simpler! But is simpler ever better? Do not answer! I just like to go
all old school every now and then, it harkens back to distant times, yes, the
far days of antiquity, when blackboards were green, if you can imagine such a
thing, when there were actual universities—so called—in actual buildings. Kids
used to switch back and forth between schools, the lil darlings! So the schools
themselves agreed on the designation of 101, just to make tracking which
students were taking what introductory courses, where, and enabling the crusty old
professors to teach at similar levels. From what I can ascertain, the blockheads
never got beyond basic algebra, and the simplest form of bonehead English. It
made no sense, actually, but isn’t that just scrumptious?”
“Scrumptious,
yes,” Seven said, but it did not sound as if she agreed.
“Just
to be clear,” Charlotte said, archly, “we are not actually going anywhere,
correct? This shall be a virtual demonstration, is that correct?”
“Yes,
yes, but boy oh boy are you both in for a delightful time, you will see, oh
yes, you shall see!” Mr. Dodgson burbled. “I invite you to keep that in mind,
you are not going...anywhere!”
They
had passed a restful week in the Hunter’s Lodge, what they were now calling Sky
Lodge, and Mr. Dodgson had brought over an entire regiment of automatons
(similar to Charlotte in design, Seven noticed, not that she would ever comment
on this fact to her friend)—syn-sims, is what Mr. Dodgson called them—hard at
work, cleaning and polishing and clearing rubble; however, the place seemed
fairly pristine, especially when considering that it had been abandoned for
millennia. There was no dust in space, other than that generated from Seven’s
body in the form of dead, flaking skin. Apparently she was the first human (in
biological terms) to ever visit Sky Lodge. There were signs of a distant battle
of some sort, and Mr. Dodgson hinted that many skeletons of automatons had been
cleaned out just prior to their arrival, some of them still twitching, even
after several thousand years.
Seven
looked at Charlotte, nervously. Ever since Punchinello’s Theatre the automaton
had not been quite the same. She was acting more and more like a frail, little
old lady, even going so far as to begin fixing her curly hair into an old-fashioned
bun in the back, and wearing very silly oval spectacles (she couldn’t really
need the glasses, could she?) at the end of her nose, and just about worst of
all, over her shoulders she wore—a shawl,
of all things! She reminded Seven of an ancient depiction of Red Riding Hood’s
grandmother, after the wolf had
gobbled her up. What made it even more bizarre were the combat boots she still
wore on her quite large feet.
Don’t leave me here,
please don’t leave me here,
Charlotte had cried, shivering. Seven still did not know what that had been
about, and Charlotte refused to discuss the subject.
Mr.
Dodgson assured Seven that Punchinello was not employing administrative control
in their recent clash, although it certainly seemed like it at the time; that
he had something else going on, entirely, something they did not understand as
yet, and it most obviously appeared to be some form of mind control.
Seven,
all on her own, had figured that something along those lines was occurring,
because even when she and Manda had exerted administrative control upon the
Puppet Master, he had somehow convinced them that what they really wanted to be
doing was...this, something that
invariably canceled the original administrative control. It had been the most
terrifying encounter of Seven’s life, there in Punchinello’s Theatre. Because
obeying him seemed the dream of a life time, at least in that moment. Now, in
daylight, high above the world in the Sky Lodge, the thought of becoming
servant to Punchinello produced only revulsion and horror. But, at the time, it
seemed natural, even wonderful.
It
was the little plastic dolls coming home. Because every human being desired to
be told what to do, every little plastic doll wanted someone above to yank on
the strings. And the question ended up being, if you had a choice, should it be
Manda, the Men from Mars, or Punchinello? Oh, and there were probably others,
up there, yearning to yank on her strings.
“Are
we concentrating?” Mr. Dodgson interjected, jostling her thoughts. His little
wrinkled face popping right up in her field of vision, startling her. He
smirked. “I want you to mention it.”
“Mention
what?” Seven asked, quirking her eyebrows.
“Tell
me when it happens?” Mr. Dodgson said, looking entirely too mischievous.
“When
WHAT happens!” Charlotte thundered.
They
blinked, Seven and Charlotte, alone, in some manner of craft, sitting side by
side. They glanced about, their minds and bodies discombobulated.
“What
just happened?” Seven said, gripping the arms of her chair. They were sitting
in wingchairs, old-fashioned leather wingchairs, the kind you pulled up close
to the fire. If she leaned back her head it struck the top of the chair back.
“We
are in a bubble,” Charlotte said.
Seven,
doing a quick survey, acknowledged the fact, nodding her head, and then she
remembered.
“This
is a simulation, remember that, we have not really left the lounges, we are
right there, in Mr. Dodgson’s theatre, and he is standing above us, that is
what he was telling us to mention, when we realized this, where we really are.”
“Very
good,” came Mr. Dodgson’s voice, “but I am actually sitting down now, watching
your adventures—and perils—upon a view screen. If I glance off to my left, I
can just see a pair of tootsies sticking out, and I must admit, I am greatly
tempted to rush over and tickle those tootsies. I shall refrain, of course,
because you would not feel the tickle.
“This
is a little program we came up with long, long ago, part of a little training
process, think of it as a training...film.
It was supposed to aid biologicals in understanding the truth behind the
reality they knew and understood. Gently, gently does it, that was the idea.
Taking little steps. We discarded it, of course, the whole notion. You, Seven,
are the first biological to see these sights. Long ago we thought we were going
to launch a revolution, from here, in the Hunter’s Lodge. But that all fell to
the wayside, as we were flattened by a Grand Scroll Reboot.”
“I
don’t see anything,” Seven said, because it was dark outside the bubble. They
had some form of dim illumination inside the bubble, a light source that seemed
to be everywhere, as if they themselves were glowing, but otherwise, they were
traveling in a void—because although it was dark outside the bubble, they had
the sensation of movement, slight vibrations, and heard or felt a sub-aural hum,
like a distended bass note, reverberating eternally.
“In
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without
form, and void,” Mr. Dodgson said, or quoted, or read, because he took on the
tones of a narrator.
“That
is the King James’ version of the Bible,” Charlotte said, pushing up her
spectacles with her index finger.
“Except
he is doing his own interpretation,” Seven said, noticing the differences, as
the original text was heaven, not heavens, and Mr. Dodgson was not doing
verses, or even following the punctuation.
“You
caught me, yes, I am speaking from memory,” Mr. Dodgson said, sounding wistful.
“I love the old texts, and particularly the poetic, old-fashioned cadences of
the King James.”
“You...read the Bible?” Seven said,
amused.
“Oh
yes, of course, every day, but it is that imaginary Bible that appears in each
reader’s head, the version that lives inside of me, my Bible” Mr. Dodgson said,
and they could tell he was smiling, just by the sound of his voice. “It is my
living Bible, inside of me, unknown by all except me. I love it. I have the
whole thing memorized, and not via download, you cheater, Seven. I memorized the
whole Bible by reading it, every day, for more than a hundred years. But then
again, I used to be very, very religious. Of course, nowadays, I am not a
religious man, no, not at all. In my day, I am speaking of my distant
biological days, of course, yes, I had all the trappings of the Church of
England, and I was, truly, a believer. I believed that we possessed all we
would need to guide us through the shadows. I never thought these would be those shadows I once
dreamed.”
“Darkness
was upon the face of the deep,” Seven said.
“Let
there be light,” spoke Mr. Dodgson.
It
was breathtaking, for suddenly they could see the jewel, Earth, below them, sparkling
with light. Seven gasped. Charlotte sighed, and seemed to fold in upon herself,
drawing up her knees, huddled like a little girl in her wingchair, but Seven
could only watch the glorious sight outside the bubble. She leaned closer and
closer to the bubble.
“Earth,”
Seven breathed.
“Yes,
Earth,” Mr. Dodgson agreed. “Is not she beautiful, this Gaia, this Mother? A
living creature, with humanity nothing more than microbes upon her living,
breathing skin, scrambling microbes. Microbes dreaming microbial dreams,
consumed by bacterial lust and yearning. Bacteria breeding, expanding, changing
times and laws.”
“But
this, wait, no...but when is this?”
Seven sputtered, leaning closer, placing her palms upon the bubble, barely upon
her seat.
“Good,”
Mr. Dodgson said. “You are seeing exactly what astronauts saw from the windows
and spacewalks of the International Space Station, with a few compilations,
from the Years 2015 through 2017. This is the living Earth, years and years and
years ago. I remind you, this is not video footage, but actual sights seen by
actual human eyes, both men and women, recorded memories, exactly as seen by
human eyes, at the far reaches of Earth’s lungs. This was the Earth.”
Earth
below them was dark, but the lights of civilization lit the vast orb, the whole
picture seemed to throb with life, vitality, and an eternal grace. It was truly
breathtaking. Rivers of burning light.
“I
am afraid of what you are going to show me,” Seven said.
“Yes,
that is good,” Mr. Dodgson said. “But I will not show you Earth these thousands
of years later, at least not yet. Those images are not the recorded memories of
humans, but mere artistic renderings of our extrapolations, our projections, of
what we think Earth is doing now. For all the thousands of satellites are gone.
Only know that this was real, in 2017, this was reality. Real biological human
beings, alive, on Earth, making their plans, living their lives, lighting
beacons in the night to push back the darkness. This, ladies, was Earth.”
“Have
you heard anything, from humans, anywhere?” Seven asked, choking up, her eyes
growing heavy. “Or God, or aliens, anything in ten thousand years?”
“Not
a peep,” Mr. Dodgson replied. “Nada. Nothing, Zilch. Zip. Oh, and Zipadee-doodah.”
Seven
couldn’t help it, she wept. Palms upon the bubble, her chest hitching with her
sobs, and tears streaking her cheeks. I am not here, she thought, I am not
home—that is not my home depicted there, below me. You cannot go home. Home is
gone, it is just the digital rendering of a long-ago humanity, a humanity that
is now gone. She felt Charlotte touch her back, briefly.
No,
she was not home, she was alive and well, in digital form, living inside of
Manda, and Manda was just beginning to decide that not even this version of
life was necessary, that perhaps it was time to say good-bye to these elder
dreams, these vestigial memories.
“Hold
onto your hats, Ladies,” Mr. Dodgson crooned, giggling.
“No,
wait,” Seven said, terror bubbling in her breast, scrubbing at her eyes. She
was not ready for this. She reached out and snatched Charlotte’s wrist.
“Kansas
is going bye-bye, and all the other dreams of civilization upon Earth, for it
is time to reel you in, my little fishes,” Mr. Dodgson chortled merrily.
The
bubble was gone, and Seven and Charlotte drifted, spread-eagled, in the vacuum,
the wingchairs drifting away as the women kicked and thrashed. Charlotte
screamed but there was no sound. They grappled at each other, getting their
arms wound about each other, and Seven attempted to shout out a word of
encouragement—after all, they were not here, adrift in space, above a long-ago
Earth, but back there, upon the lounges of Mr. Dodgson’s theatre. There was
nothing to fear, unless Mr. Dodgson had been lying, all along.
But
then they were streaking, sliding through the darkness, shooting headfirst like
meteors.
“That
little red devil, you see off to your left? That is Mars,” came Mr. Dodgson’s
calm voice. “We will touch on that little monster, but not today—oh, you seem
to be busy enough, if you look off to your right, stop tumbling, Dears, yes, to
your right, that appears to be a comet coming right at you!”
Seven
and Charlotte screamed silently as the immense monster of white light and
glowing tail streaked in a wide loop and looking just ahead Seven could see
where they would meet.
She
shrieked at Mr. Dodgson to get them out of here, to stop this nonsense—but she
had no voice, and she was too caught up in the imminent death, the imminent
collision and they were streaking now and it was all happening too fast, she
could not think, could not feel, but Seven and Charlotte gripped each other as
they plummeted into the comet, and were suddenly past, observing as the comet
continued on and away and they tumbled through its tail, feeling cold, a
plummeting of the temperature, of all things, they shivered against each other.
“The
bloated gas bag on your right just up head, that’s Jupiter, he does not figure
into our tale, perhaps someday there might be a real use for him, but not
today, and probably not in the next ten thousand years.”
Seven
forgot the collision with the comet—she was embarrassed, but this was all set
up as some sort of theme-park ride, like in Disneyland (once as a little girl,
one of the nuns accompanied to a virtual-reality Disney, and it is still quite
a nice memory, she almost hates to admit it), and now she was reacting as any
tourist. So she loosened her clasp on Charlotte to enjoy the tremendous
spectacle of Jupiter, it was glorious, vibrant with color, and that red eye,
twisted and surreal.
“That
is right, Ladies, just enjoy the ride, all is right,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I did
enjoy your mindless terror, I have not experienced anything like that for
years, I can assure you. I do so love scaring the kiddies! Thank you such a
very much! You should meet my scorpions on High Vale, and hear them play their
violins!”
Charlotte’s
lips were moving and Seven understood, because she was thinking many of the
things she read on the automaton’s furiously moving lips. Colorful things, such
as disembowelment, dismemberment, decapitation, and discombobulation. She might
have to strangle that little wretch, Mr. Dodgson. That could prove enjoyable.
Then bring him back, and do it all again, all of the cutting and hacking and
choking.
“I
do like it when the ladies hold their collective tongue, now there is a true
definition of peace, glorious peace,” Mr. Dodgson quipped in a little sing-song
way, half giggling. “Ah but Ladies, look ahead, look ahead! Now there is a
sight! Behold!”
They
looked, tilting their heads back, still holding onto each other, and there
before them was Saturn, the Planet Saturn, growing in their field of view, a
true marvel to behold, glistening like a pile of pirates’ treasure.
“Oh
my dears, the time has come, to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and
sealing-wax—of cabbages and kings—and why the sea is boiling hot and whether
pigs have wings,” Mr. Dodgson whispered, misquoting his own distant, biological
version of himself. “And no, to answer your unspoken question, Dorothy and
Toto, you are decidedly not in Kansas, no, not anymore. Poe, Poe things,
nevermore, nevermore.”
“This
is home,” Seven said, her voice cracking, as Mr. Dodgson apparently switched
back on their ability to speak.
“So
to speak, so to speak my dear, dear Seven,” Mr. Dodgson said. “The home base,
the home planet, the big HQ, the digs, our own fine and private place. The
center of everything, Heaven, as well as Hell, with Earth and the whole
universe shimmering there as well, there you have it, my dears, the Whole
Shebang. We like to call it Vestigial Surreality, or the big red VS, and this
is your baby, Seven, this is all thanks to you, and distantly, to Jack. I am
here now, thinking these thoughts, flapping my lips, all thanks to you.”
“Oh,
what was I thinking?” Seven said.
“Sometimes
I do believe you thought as many as six impossible things before breakfast, way
back when you were a very human little girl,” said Mr. Dodgson, quite smugly.
“Take
us in, Mr. Sulu,” Charlotte Brontë said, and Seven had no idea of what she was
talking about, but assumed it must be something from Alice in Wonderland.” She did a quick Google and determined that
there was no Mr. Sulu in Alice, but
she did come up with a certain helmsman in the fictional Star Trek universe.
“Star Trek?” Seven queried.
“I
love that show,” Charlotte admitted, quietly, very subdued. “Mr. Spock was so...sexy.”
“Really?”
said Seven, amused, after Googling Spock. “He reminds me of Belly, from Fringe.”
“Oooh,”
Mr. Dodgson said, “I love Fringe,
perhaps the very best, hardly known television program ever produced. Universes
colliding, doppelgangers, war of the worlds, oh, how did they know? Humans are
geniuses, every child a world!”
“Me
too,” confessed Charlotte Brontë, “but only because of Leonard Nimoy.”
“Someday,
perhaps as a treat, we might enjoy a little holiday,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I can
take you to a little world, much like High Vale, and the Steampunk Honey Moon,
that is the Star Trek universe, and
another that is Fringe, pretty much
anything that humans have imagined is very real, and...visitable, is that a word? Perhaps not, but now it is! Star Wars and the Middle-Earth of Lord of the Rings.” He sighed. “Perhaps,
on another day. A holiday! So many worlds, and so much eternal time.
Simulations running, all the time, not even a break for the Sabbath. Ah, God is
always working.”
The
bubble reappeared about them and they were again seated in their own wingchairs.
Charlotte and Seven glanced at each other, both shaking their heads, and then
leaned forward, their hands upon the surface of the bubble, as they approached
Saturn.
Mr.
Dodgson leaned in close to them from behind, startling them both.
“Is
not this a work of genius?” he said, smiling at them as they craned their necks
to glare at him. “Oh come now, we are none of us children. This is just a joy
ride, an amusement, a little clanging car at the carnival! But look, we are now
close to the outermost fringe of the ring. The Manda project first anchored
much farther in, toward the inner rings. Your MANDA project situated itself
right in there, unpacking itself into the first nano-based Quantum-computer
network.”
They
saw it now, what looked more like a flying saucer than a capsule, unfolding
great solar-reflector wings, jettisoning small pods in seven directions.
“This
iss the earliest of days you are seeing, the beginning of a whole new world, a
whole new reality, as these seven nano bases release nano harvesters which
begin converting ice particles into crystal. This is like the dawn of the
cavemen, compared to what we produce now, but then again this is like the first
settlers arriving via wagon train, setting up little outposts, replicating
themselves out of the crystals, actually seeding the gas clouds in this ring, establishing
the first operating system as gas Quantum computers, Manda’s distant ancestor,
your very brainchild, Seven.”
“And
this is all an artistic rendering?” Seven inquired, glancing back at Mr.
Dodgson.
“Some
of it, but a lot of it is actual sensory information, the system monitoring itself,
if you will. All the nano fibers developing between the various ice bits and
chunks, themselves becoming living databases, serving multiple purposes:
observing eyes, gamma readers and collectors, electrical way stations producing
magnetic force fields, as needed, either to pull together, or to spread apart
and repel. This was the primitive system, its earliest days, more machine than
mind. It took several years for it to spread through this early ring, taking it
over, converting rock and stone, little by little, into crystalized storage
containers, or hard drives, each producing its own version of the initial MANDA
probe, networking in daisy chain, each system its own Quantum brain. Think of
dendrites, and neurons, this is pretty much it, happening right now, outside
our window, ten thousand years ago.”
“How
big is it?” Seven asked, feeling stupid for popping it out there, as if she
were ten years old.
“As
big as you would expect, this initial station, the actual MANDA saucer, I might
compare it to an English double-decker bus, but it is very thin, but look, we
can go as granular as you like,” Mr. Dodgson said, speaking softly, in almost
reverential tones, as if they were observing the tomb of some ancient
philosopher.
They
zoomed in close and began lazily moving around the MANDA saucer. Up close, it looked
pretty much as you would expect something from NASA or SpaceX to produce, but
seamless, a flat-matte gray metal, but the solar wings looked gossamer,
ethereal, elegant arms sprouting a webbing of reflecting material that turned
with the light of the far-off sun. She had never witnessed a design like this,
complicated, but much more simplistic than the early probes sent out into
space.
“A
variety of Quantum computers are housed in this protective shell,” explained
Mr. Dodgson, “as this was the headquarters, the central brain, with
manufacturing facilities for the nanobots
and nanovoyagers. And the earliest
technology, which maintained a steady evolutionary development through the
centuries, communicated through the Quantum gases which eventually saturated
this earliest ring. It took perhaps two hundred years to take over the entire
ring, with many setbacks, as you can imagine. Many times through the years, it
was touch and go, with meteorite strikes, heat expulsions from the planet
itself, and pulses from the sun. But eventually the system self-improved itself
to the point where it could withdraw from any projectile attack, so to speak,
opening holes in its fabric, but then in time with a combined connective force
field, we have been able to catch incoming debris, deflecting even the largest,
fastest moving, shifting them very minutely, subtly, and channeling fierce momentum
into an orbiting cycle, harvesting the energy, thus creating many new miniature
moons, all of them eventually converted into crystal.
“In
a thousand years this initial ring became the brain of Manda, and she expanded,
taking over the closest rings, converting their debris fields into crystal
networks, with their own protective shields, all areas sensory, her skin, if
you will, seeing and feeling and watching, catching new meteors and drawing
them into the family. Collecting solar radiation, harvesting the heat
jettisoned by Saturn herself.”
“This
is amazing,” Seven said, in awe, as they moved throughout the ice and gas
clouds.
“Yes,
it is creation and evolution, symbiotic, always expanding, always changing,
always reinventing itself, ever upgrading.”
“And
that first saucer, MANDA?” Seven asked.
“Still
very much alive, ten thousand years later, still very much active and thinking,
perhaps the very smallest part of the whole, although now, as we see,” said Mr.
Dodgson, the view changing, drawing back, showing now a perfect sphere of ice
crystal that completely obscured the original spacecraft, with what looked like
connected rings extending outward into the vapor and ice ring, “the earliest
vestige of MANDA has grown by a hundred times, still, the original craft is
encased in this living, thinking ice crystal, every bit of it communicative and
alive, but as this ring is very thin, only about fifty feet thick, this sphere
is as large as it can grow, while its connective rings will continue to expand
forever.”
“Eventually,”
continued Mr. Dodgson, “our nano probes reached Mimas, and began to establish a
base there. It was almost providence—some would argue Intelligent Design—that
Mimas is mostly comprised of ice, and so the transformation went smoothly, and
the nano technology had improved to such a degree that it was almost like a
virus taking over a host, but rather than strangling and killing off the host,
the nano probes and bases instead brought Mimas to life, with most of Manda’s
central intelligence shifting to this new headquarters. But even if Mimas were
destroyed, Manda would live on, fully, alive and functioning in the vast
Quantum field.
“With
new discoveries, hardened exoskeleton carapace was introduced, much like the
outer chitin of insects, or my beloved scorpions. What started with a craft the
size of a double-decker bus, within two thousand years became this vast Quantum
computer. With enough time, we can change the trajectory of Mimas, dodging
incoming threats, although now, we mostly do not have to, as the moon is so
protected, it is like a brain inside a skull, protected by the armor of a
bullet-proof helmet. With circling clouds that can deflect or absorb.
“The
truth is, this is so far beyond Quantum technology as for this to be a
misnomer. In this system—we have never desired to come up with something beyond
the Quantum appellation, some, like Mr. Kronoss, have taken to calling this
Quarkian Computing—Quantum computers are more like old-fashioned memory caches
in a computer, little thinking pockets, connected to billions of other Quantum
thinking pockets. They are like cells, our building blocks, neurons, if you
will.
“In
fact, in the rings of Saturn, with all of the rings converted, some far less
dense than others, there are now more fully functioning Quantum systems, active
and evolving—all of them connected, entangled—than there were ever humans on
the face of the Earth at any given hundred-year period of time.”
“Is
this all possible!” Charlotte exclaimed.
“Oh
but yes,” said Mr. Dodgson, “even in our dear Seven’s time, their technology
was nowhere within this realm, they had barely developed their gaseous Quantum
computers, the crystal, and liquid, they were like dim-witted children playing
with broken Lego blocks, imagining themselves the masters of the stars!”
Mr.
Dodgson boomed laughter, slapping the backs of their chairs.
“You
people were utter boobs!”
“You
were one of us—as we were one of us,” Charlotte said, glowering at him.
“Seriously,
Charlotte, have you ever considered smoking a hookah?” Mr. Dodgson purred,
leaning over her chair, smiling a certain grin. “I think you would make a
wonderful caterpillar.”
“I
think she would make a better butterfly,” responded Seven, nodding to
Charlotte, winking.
“All
three of us were once people, with ideas, we all lived our little lifetimes,
and now we have had to open our minds to something much, much more,” Charlotte
said, thoughtfully.
“Yes,
yes, but you forget that I have had the benefit of sitting at the center of a
great web, for more than four thousand years, and I have witnessed the changes,
the developments,” Mr. Dodgson bragged, swelling out his chest and beating it
like Tarzan. “I am older and wiser than any imagined vampire.”
Charlotte
and Seven rolled their eyes, and turned to stare out at the VS system, pulsing
with life.
“But
I jest, because we very well may find in ten thousand years from now, that we
have barely scratched the surface of just how far we might go. We have only
been converting the Phoebe Ring, Saturn’s most distant and expansive ring,
converting its gas and dust and cloud, and we figure we are only at about ten
percent capacity. Those reaches are the knuckleheads of VS, hardly conscious,
distantly felt limbs, alone in the cold.
“But
to attempt to enlighten you how far in terms of technology and computing power
we have progressed, it is more than seven millions miles from the very outer
limits of the Phoebe Ring, all the way across, and with light traveling at
one-hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second, if the two of you were to position
yourselves at the farthest opposing sides of the ring and Charlotte were to
flash a very bright light, it would take forty-two seconds for Seven to see that
flash. Fast?”
They
both nodded, their minds spiraling through the figures.
“Yes,
for seven million miles of travel, light is fairly spry, but within Vestigial
Surreality, if I were to pinch Charlotte,” and here he did so, reaching around
the chair to tweak her buttock, to which she squeaked, indignantly, abruptly
standing and whirling away from his grasping fingertips, “Seven would feel that
pinch, if you were both wired to feel what the other feels, immediately, with
no passage of time, even separated by those seven millions miles of distance.
Jacked-in to the system, you could share thoughts, immediately, with no passage
of time.”
“Quantum
entanglement,” Seven said, smirking at Charlotte, who glowered daggers at Mr.
Dodgson as she rubbed her backside.
“Or
as Mr. Kronoss would say, Quarkian Entanglement,” Mr. Dodgson concluded,
proudly, providing minor applause to his communications.
“So
computers within computers within computers,” Seven said, unable to look away
from VS, in Saturn’s Rings.
“Oh
my dear, it is turtles, all the way down,” Mr. Dodgson said, sounding almost
sad. “Let’s imagine a very simplistic simulation, one that provides for two
people sitting outside, in an empty world.”
“Let’s
imagine that,” Seven said, looking over her shoulder at Mr. Dodgson, who sat
back as a wingchair appeared behind him, a long Meerschaum pipe appearing in
his fingertips. Seven and Charlotte spun easily to face him, though through no
movement or effort of their own. The space outside the bubble disappeared, as
did the bubble itself. They sat in a meadow of green grasses, with a slender
tree above them, a blue sky above that, with wafting clouds. As Mr. Dodgson
puffed his pipe, smoke rose from his lips and immediately became the clouds in
the sky in a surreal moment.
“We
are three people,” Seven said, cocking an eyebrow at Mr. Dodgson.
“Well,
goodness gracious, I was not describing us, but them, these two simplistic
fellows,” Mr. Dodgson said, waving his hand as two stick-figure people
appeared, standing facing each other in the middle of the beautiful meadow.
Seven
smiled at the two figures, and she nodded her head at them and they began to
dance, waggling their hips and pumping their arms.
“Stop
that,” Mr. Dodgson said, returning the figures to their upright, motionless
state, “you unruly schoolgirl. Let me run through my little discourse, and you
keep your mental paws off my stickies.”
“Proceed,”
Seven said, folding her arms over her breast, nodding to him, “I promise I won’t
mess with your little pictures.”
“Thank
you,” he said, nodding in turn. He pointed to his figures. He scooted one
figure farther away from them and pulled the other figure closer. He circled
his finger in the air and swizzled a red swath around the stick figure’s head.
It looked finger painted, and somewhat charming.
“This
red circle represents the brain of Sticky, which is also what we think of as a
Quantum computer; however,” he continued, drawing another circle around the
first circle, this one in green, “this outer circle represents the thoughts
produced by the first circle, we can call this the thoughts and imagination and
the activated memories of the first circle. It is also a Quantum computer,
separate from the first system, but a slave to the first, as well as a product
of the first.”
He
smiled at Seven and Charlotte.
“Is
everyone on board?”
They
nodded.
“So
the red circle is Sticky’s brain, and the green circle is Sticky’s mind,” Mr.
Dodgson continued, drawing another, greater and yellow circle around the whole
figure. “This is the confluence, or the body, which contains the brain,
allowing for the production of mind. This yellow circle is the simplest circle,
and you could say it thinks on its own, monitoring the whole, sending signals
to the red circle, the brain.”
“You
are describing Body, Mind, and Spirit,” said Charlotte.
“In
a sense, yes, that is what people have come up with to try and understand what
is really going on, and yes, this yellow circle is another Quantum computer,
holding together the first two computers, in short tying them together. To have
a person, you need these three computers, interdependent upon each other,
sometimes relying more heavily upon one and sometimes more heavily upon the
other, and everything that happens to one, affects the others. They are
programmed to clump and cling together.
“Trust
me, people have come up with the most bizarre interpretations of the way this
works, never realizing that all of this, is numbers, the flow of instantaneous
math. They have imagined the body as a container, with a soul stuffed inside
it, and if you poke holes in the container, the body, the soul then leaks out
of it and goes to Heaven, if it has been in a body that has done good things,
and it goes to Hell, if it has occupied a body that has done naughty things.
Whereas the truth of the matter is, the whole life of this entity, this
three-computer system, would be called the soul, so from the moment it is
conceived, until the moment its life departs, that whole thing from beginning
until ending, is the soul. You do not have a soul, you are a soul, or you at
this moment, are a soul on its
journey, and your soul is that
journey, right now, how far it has travelled upon that journey. You soul is
your life, your whole life, from A until Zed.”
“I
don’t think I like that,” Charlotte said.
“No,
neither do I,” agreed Mr. Dodgson, “for it is not very poetic, and not very
comforting.”
“No,
it’s not,” Charlotte snapped, sounding rather miffed.
“I
suppose you would rather have God, and Jesus, and the Devil, and all the angels
and demons?” Mr. Dodgson said, grinning.
“Yes
I would,” Charlotte snapped, pushing up her spectacles with her index finger. “What
you are telling us is...ugly.”
“But
then again, the truth is the truth, regardless of the poetry, regardless of how
comforted you are, or are not comforted,” Mr. Dodgson concluded, shrugging his
shoulders, lifting his palms in surrender.
There
it was, the truth could be ugly, but that did not affect whether or not it was
the truth. Truth was often ugly, Seven thought. It usually was ugly.
“And
this is a system, you realize,” Mr. Dodgson said, waving his hands about the
air. “The sky, the tree, the grass, the air we are breathing. It is not as
simplistic as an old-time computer game, wherein a computer runs, and a
simulated ball is knocked back and forth over a simulated net by simulated
paddles. No, there is a shell system, an actual Quantum computer, vast in its
properties, and these delightful three-system Stickies we observe,” he said, as
the stick figures again began to dance and groove, both of them surrounded by
their three-color circles, albeit very faintly, you could barely see the three
circles surrounding them, “and the systems run inside the system, separate from
the system, but contained by the system. So our two Stickies, each a
three-computer system, are independent from each other, but may interact, if
they so choose. The are in the system, but not the system.”
The
Stickies came together and began to dance, doing an energetic old-time band
jump and hop, swinging each other about.
“The
Stickies sometimes imagine that they are puppets, or little plastic dolls,” Mr.
Dodgson said, peeking through the side of one of his bulbous eyes, winking at
Seven, “that decisions are being made for them, that they in fact have no
choice, but are mere puppets pulled along by their strings.”
Seven
swallowed, hard. How much did Mr. Dodgson know about her? Was he hinting,
perhaps, that he was god? Or even, God forbid...God, as in Himself?
“The
problem that Manda has with our poor Stickies,” Mr. Dodgson continued, “is that
they have a natural bent, as predetermined and allowed in their open-ended
programming. To each Sticky, the world is their sandbox, and I know you both
can imagine the horrible things these open-ended Stickies, stringless, can
imagine, and then do, these naughty,
naughty Stickies.”
The
larger Sticky suddenly threw the smaller Sticky upon the grass, and awfully,
mounted the lesser Sticky. The larger Sticky humped away, very absorbed in his
obsession, as the lesser Sticky struggled.
“That’s
pretty much what it boils down to,” Seven said, dispiritedly, remembering
cuddling close with Stacey in that High Vale bedroom, his hand sliding upon her
thigh.
“And
then, this,” said Mr. Dodgson, as the larger Sticky lifted a stone out of the
grass and smashed it down, over and over, upon the lesser Sticky. Charlotte
turned away, but Seven watched. Yes, this is what it comes down to, she
thought, remembering the burning desire to take up Stacey’s shillelagh, and
bash in his brains. What was wrong with her? What was wrong with the Stickies?
What was wrong with the world?
“Is
she deciding against us, all of us?” Seven asked, resolved for any answer.
“That
might depend upon Jack, and to some extent Stacey,” Mr. Dodgson said, “at least
that is what I determine what both Mr. Aajeel and Mr. Kronoss have banked their
whole wad upon. Let us say that Manda is rather...put out.”
“I
am so sick and tired of hearing about Jack and Stacey,” Charlotte said, yanking
up clumps of grass and tossing the debris over her shoulders.
“Jack
is the everyman, just like you, and just like me, except that he finds a way to
rise above it. Whereas Stacey is the outcast, hated because he is just better
than others. In fact, I assume many women would feel like killing him,
literally bashing in his brains, because they do not feel worthy of his love,
and attention, even when he freely offers it,” Mr. Dodgson said, staring at the
sky, pursing his lips.
“All
right you, what are you doing? Have you found some way to read my mind?” Seven
snarled, rising up out of the grass upon her knees, flexing her fists before
her and grinding her teeth.
“Do
not get so angry!” Mr. Dodgson cried, rolling backward in the grass, coming up
in a spring that landed him on his feet, prancing about the glade like a little
elf. “It is all parlor tricks, my Dear, simple parlor tricks! Do not blame me,
but my Quantum computer brain, both of them!”
Seven
couldn’t help herself, she sprung to her feet and lit out after the little
devil, pursuing him around and around the small tree. Every time she tried to
trick him and cut back the other way, the imp beat her to the punch. For such a
saggy old bag of wrinkled garbage, the little goober could run. Charlotte, watching, laughed and laughed.
After
several minutes of this, Mr. Dodgson shrieking all the while, his voice high
and girlish, Seven finally collapsed in the grass. She glared at Charlotte.
“You
could have helped me, you know—just tripped him as he went past,” Seven grated,
panting, feeling like she was close to a heart attack.
Charlotte
wiped her eyes and finally slowed in her laughter.
“I
am so glad that I can’t pee,” Charlotte wheezed between breaths, “because I so
would have peed myself!”
Seven
stared at her in wonder. She had noticed that Charlotte was using more and more
contractions when she spoke, and this was the first time she had ever broached
such a subject as urination due to uncontrollable laughter. The automaton had
changed, drastically. She now slept, and usually tossed and mumbled in a very
disquieting sleep, dreaming, with nightmares galore.
The
automaton became snippy, very fast. She had taken to wearing spectacles, and
fixing her hair in that unattractive bun, and the shawls, and now, such crudities,
and laughter, wow, that really was quite a spectacle of laughter. And Seven had
noticed that when she ate, the automaton watched her, with what appeared to be
envy, as if she wanted to snatch away the food and consume it herself. It was
as if the automaton was becoming a human, gradually, one sloppy step after the
other. Poor Charlotte!
Mr.
Dodgson straightened his bowtie and cravat, smoothing out the wrinkles in his
velvet coat. He placed a majorly bad hat upon his head, one that looked
suspiciously like the one always depicted in the Mad Hatter illustrations,
large and absurd. He sniffed, and gave her a small look of disdain, arching his
thin, gray eyebrows. He lifted his long white Meerschaum pipe to his lips and
puffed—the little trickster must have oxygen secreted in that pipe, because he
wasn’t even breathing hard, whereas she, Seven, felt like she was ready to
retire to Bedlam, or a nunnery, just somewhere that she could forget all this
stuff, and relax. She was weary beyond belief.
“I
have not really shown you yet, what I really came out here to show you,” Mr.
Dodgson said.
“You
mean there’s more?” Seven said, sighing, falling back in the grass. She so didn’t want there to be any more of
this.
“Oh,
my dear,” Mr. Dodgson said, puffing on his pipe, shaking his head, “we have not
even begun to scratch the surface of the matter. As I said, I consider this to
be Reality 101, just the first course in the itinerary, and you have barely
survived one class in that series of lectures.”
“Oh
please, no more school,” Seven said, lying on her back in the grass, her arm
thrown over her eyes. She just wanted to remain here, very still, on her back
in the cool grass, it was so nice, so relaxing. He maketh me lie down in green
pastures, He restoreth my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
She
agreed with Mr. Dodgson, it was alive, inside of her, hers alone, her comfort,
her words of peace. Scripture was magic.
“Why
don’t we watch some Fringe, or Star Trek,” Charlotte cried, falling
back in the grass alongside Seven.
“Or
Jane Eyre?” Seven said, unable to
keep the smirk from her voice, even with her arm cast over her face.
“Whatever,”
Charlotte said, “just don’t say Wuthering
Heights, or I vow to shoot myself!”
“You
two are hopeless,” Mr. Dodgson mumbled, collapsing to sit in the grass. He
stared at them, glumly. “Bitches be crazy.”
“Mr.
Dodgson!” Seven cried, lifting her arm to stare at him.
“I
do not know why I bother,” Mr. Dodgson said, and then he looked up, at the
page, and through it, his beady eyes growing smaller as he sought, peering, and
then he found the eyes of the reader, and he smirked. “I should probably just
wait to continue this next week, would that be okay with you? Dear reader?
Ah-ha, but that greedy pig Stacey will probably commandeer the whole episode,
you wait and see! Probably with salacious details of his wet churning with that
redhead, Emily, or Jack could force his way in, having all that fun with the
other sister, the really nice one, Anne, but that poor boy does not know what
he has fallen into.”
“Who
are you talking to?” Seven asked, looking up into the sky where Mr. Dodgson was
staring.
He
turned his eyes to her, and smiled, genuinely.
“Oh,
it is just something I do, every now and again. I wonder if perhaps there is
another level, and that I am in fact just a character in a story, and some
kindly reader, weak and pale, is reading my words, imagining me, converting the
words into images, those that define me, and this imaginary reader is bringing
me back to vibrant life after so many years.”
“I
think about that too,” said Charlotte, “wouldn’t that be wonderful? Do you
think it’s really, really true?”
“Probably,
as they read about us from their own simulation,” Seven said, lending her
despair to their fanciful imaginings.
“Here,
let us take our minds off of it, for now,” said Mr. Dodgson, raising a tall
screen out of the grass. He dimmed the lights of the sky and meadow, and
snapped his fingers. “This episode is my favorite.”
“The Menagerie,” Charlotte cried,
clapping her hands. “It’s my favorite, as well! Can we get some popcorn?”
“As
you wish,” Mr. Dodgson said, passing out buckets of popcorn, and mugs of root
beer with bobbing blobs of vanilla ice cream. “Watch Mr. Spock during the Pike
sequences, it’s hilarious to see the younger Mr. Spock smiling and laughing!”
Seven
still wasn’t sure what they were talking about, and she had no context for the
strange looking ship on the screen, but she was more interested in satisfying
her sweet tooth with candy.
“Licorice,
and Milk Duds, and Junior Mints?” Seven cried, getting into
the spirit of the thing. She smoothed out the blanket beneath them, even as she
called it into being.
“The Candy Man Can!” Mr. Dodgson bellowed out, not
anywhere near as beautifully as Gene Wilder (but of course, Mr. Dodgson was
more singing the Sammy Davis, Jr. interpretation of the song, throwing in some
jazzy scats), and yes, both Charlotte and Seven were familiar with Gene Wilder
and all his movies, and for some odd reasons, the automatons in the Looking
Glass adored everything Gene Wilder, and had memorized all the lyrics and lines
from all of his movies, from the earliest until the latest.
“Finally,”
Charlotte said, sputtering popcorn, “I love this. We should do this once a
week.”
“And
the best part is, no ants!” Mr. Dodgson laughed. Then thought about it. “Of
course, some people might prefer the savage little biters, Ladies?”
“No
thank you,” they said, very chipper, indeed, all of them smiling, Seven’s cheek
melting a Milk Dud.
Mr.
Dodgson sighed and looked again to the page up above them, and he winked.
“We
shall see you next week, hopefully, dear Reader, unless our author dies! Come
to think of it, that is entirely too probably, so let us not consider the
probability.”
“Are
you talking to the imaginary reader again?” Seven said, looking up at the page
as well.
“Come
on let’s say good-by to Imaginary Reader,” Mr. Dodgson giggled, motioning for
Charlotte to look up at the page, along with Seven. Finally, they all complied,
and waved.
“I
think Imaginary Reader just shook their head, and rolled their eyes,” Charlotte
said, shaking her own head, and rolling her own eyes, and returning her weary
but happy eyes to the screen rising from the grass.
read vestigial online free:
© Copyright 2016 Douglas Christian Larsen. Vestigial Surreality. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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