Spheria

  Ra∙ju was angry. He said, “Enough! I will not tolerate my children fighting any longer. Your powers are from this point frozen and in balance. Blue will not be changed to red, nor will blue be repulsive to red.”

  The gods accepted their place and returned to the center to look upon the lands that they created. They were pleased with their work, but the terrain was dark. Ra∙ju then turned to his last child.

  “Na∙ro the yellow, shine your brightness upon the lands so that we may see them, and the creatures may see each other.” To this, he burst into a shower of shimmering brightness, and the world was filled with light.

  #

  “So that’s why living things can touch the red and not turn red?” asked Le∙ma. “But nothing else can?”

  “That is why. The ancient ones, when they formed the world, created the rules by which everything behaves. Knowing how things work, and how to use their properties together, is what makes us Lumenaries. By your training, and the training I received, we know more about the world than most others, and this gives us an advantage.”

  “I feel privileged and grateful to you for having been selected to receive this knowledge.”

  “So far, it’s been my privilege to be able to teach you. You're a good student, and I think your deeds will someday exceed my own.”

  “I doubt that, but thank you for the words of encouragement.”

  “Now,” Sa∙ma said, changing the subject. “You need to use your knowledge to get us across the river.”

  Le∙ma was perplexed. She looked around. She thought about the story of creation. Without realizing it, she worked the problem out by speaking it.

  “Okay, so the red rivers turn everything red, except the living. But living things stick to it, and it’s difficult to detach oneself without help. If we put something living on it, we can walk over that!” She was proud of herself. As they walked along the bank, she found a plant leaning over and pushed it down, laying it upon the red river. Starting from the point where the plant touched the river, it turned red along its length until it reached the ground. The part over the river sank down, leaving a strip of red rock remaining on the shore.

  “Why?” she asked.

  Her logic was clever, so Sa∙ma explained why it had failed. “Remember my story. ‘The Living’ applies to those with violet cores, like us, or the beasts. Plants are alive, in a sense, but they don’t have a violet center so they’ll turn red.”

  “So we need to pile up a bunch of beasts onto the river.”

  “Maybe, but there has got to be a better way.”

  Le∙ma worked through the problem, replaying the scene in her mind. I laid the plant down so we could walk across it, but then it touched the river and turned red. It would’ve worked if it didn’t touch the river.

  A realization came to her. She strutted away from the river, found one of the arched plants, a big one, and pulled it from the ground. She dragged it and tossed it across the river so that one end landed on the opposite bank. The arch made a bridge, something she’d never seen or envisioned before.

  “Perfect!” Sa∙ma commended her.

  Le∙ma knew it would just fall over if they climbed on it. So she yanked it back over, retrieved three more, and lashed them together side by side to make a thick archway. With Sa∙ma’s help, she heaved this structure across the river once more. It was both broad and stable enough for them to cross, which they did.

  “I solved it!” Le∙ma danced with joy on the opposite side, as the Source began to dim above her.

  “Come on,” said Sa∙ma. “I want to get to the Rift before night. It’s not far now.”

  They marched off in the direction of the chasm that divided their world in two.

  Chapter 6 - First Impressions

  “There is no personal charm so great as the charm of a cheerful temperament.” - Henry Van Dyke

  Max tapped his foot, waiting for the elevator. He watched the numbers count down, pausing at every digit for an unusually extended period of time. He pulled out his phone and looked at the time: 10:05. He was already late for the interview. His team desperately needed this candidate to be a fit. They’d been without an intern for six weeks following the tragic suicide of their previous one.

  A ‘ding’ was heard, then the elevator doors opened, brightening the corridor. Two kids rushed out, laughing. They dodged around Max as he stepped in.

  The lift was empty. Max poked his head out the door and shouted, “Where are your parents?” But the kids were nowhere in sight. He ducked back in and the door shut. As he went to press floor seven, he noticed all the lighted squares.

  “Damn kids!” he exclaimed. They’d pressed every floor before leaving the elevator.

  Max pressed the numbers randomly in frustration. He pounded his fist on the panel as the elevator began moving upwards.

  The door opened on the second floor. He stared out into an empty hallway. After what seemed like a full thirty seconds, the door closed.

  Why the hell don’t they allow you to unselect elevator buttons? he thought to himself. It should be like check boxes on a computer form. If you press it again, it’ll uncheck that option. That way if you make a mistake, you can fix it, or in the case of annoying kids, reverse their joke.

  The door opened on floor three. Carts of medical equipment were lined up along one wall. They looked like expensive devices. One resembled an oscilloscope with a bunch of dangling electrical cables. The door closed.

  We’ve had radio buttons since the sixties. And computer interfaces with them for decades. But Otis Elevator, in all its wisdom, has never thought to allow you to unselect a floor by pressing it again.

  The door opened, revealing floor four. Across from the elevator was a special fountain used to flush one’s eyes out in the case of an accidental chemical burn. I hope I never have to use one of those. The door closed.

  Max watched the floor four light go out as the elevator made its way toward floor five. The door opened.

  A lab across from the elevator glowed an eerie red through its smoky white window panel. Why’d they have red lights in there? What twisted experiments are they doing? Probably sticking sensors into monkey brains and seeing how they interpret colors. I’m glad we only experiment on fake creatures. The door shut.

  Max looked at his watch again. 10:08. “Damn.” Fucking kids.

  Floor six. A sterile cinder block wall, institutional beige, filled the view. With a sudden rattling noise, a cart of glassware sped by. It was pushed by a woman who was obviously in a hurry and had built up quite a bit of momentum. The sound startled Max from his thoughts. “One more to go,” he said.

  “Sorry?” asked the woman pushing the cart, as the doors closed.

  Yeah, you’re sorry. I’m the one who’s late.

  The final ding and the elevator delivered Max to floor seven. Max rushed down the hall to the lab, which was tucked away behind an unassuming wooden door. He yanked it open and it slammed into the adjacent wall. A young Asian woman looked up from the magazine she was perusing. She sat in the first of two chairs they had set up as a makeshift lobby, with a browning fern placed in between. Reminder to self, water the plant, he thought.

  “Hello,” he said. “I’m Max. Sorry I’m late. I had some issues… with the elevator.” He held out his hand.

  The woman put down her magazine and stood up. She had short black hair and thick black-rimmed glasses. She grasped Max’s hand and shook it. “I’m Min. I hate elevators, they’re always bringing me down.” By the way she winced at herself, even she thought that was dorky. But Max liked that she made the joke anyway. “I haven’t been waiting long,” she recovered.

  “Nice to meet you, Min. I can already tell you'll be perfect. Let’s talk in my office and then I’ll show you around.”

  #

  Max entered Dana’s office. It was larger than his. In addition to the desk, it had a separate round table for holding meetings, a mini fridge, and two small bookcases. It was also on the first
floor and in Building 20, which was the name for the government grant wing of the UConn Health Center. This location allowed her to work with administrative staff directly, but didn’t prevent her from collaborating with the team. Her workstation had a direct fiber link into Spheria’s computer system. Max pulled one of the table’s chairs over and placed Min’s resume on the desk.

  “This is the one,” he proclaimed.

  Dana picked up the resume and began to read through it.

  Max glanced out Dana’s window at the view of the Farmington Valley beyond the parking lot. This reminded him what an odd location a medical facility was for an A.I. project like Spheria. He’d debated it with Graham, but apparently the dean owed him a favor or two for funding some research here previously. So their space was generous and economical, and utilities were free. Also, the location in Connecticut assured they could attract talent from either Boston or New York City.

  “She looks good on paper. You’re sure she can take your twisted management style?” Dana asked.

  “What do you mean? Everyone loves my management style. I have some of the best talent available.”

  “I can’t argue with that.” She looked at the resume again. “Her name. Min? Seems ironically appropriate. Maybe this one can handle the stress.”

  “Stress? There is no stress! This is pure fun. We’re paid to basically play all day in a big sandbox. What more could any researcher want?”

  “Tell that to Olivia.”

  Max frowned and slumped his shoulders. “That’s still a mystery to me. Olivia was finding some intriguing trends in the data, work that she loved. She was all smiles every day. I don’t get it. What would’ve pushed her over the edge?”

  Dana glared at Max. “That’s a rather poor choice of words, don’t you think?”

  “Right. Not my intention.”

  “Anyway, I agree. I don’t get why she’d commit suicide. She was on a great project, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, working with some amazingly talented people. She even seemed to cope well with your style. As you say, you’re paid to play all day.”

  “Yep.”

  Dana handed the resume back to Max and glanced at a printout on her desk.

  “We have a problem, Max.”

  “What?”

  “The paid part. The initial funding for this project is drying up. You've spent too much too fast. I know things cost more than you expected, and you increased the scope of the project somewhat. But we’re going to need more, especially if you keep bringing on new people.”

  “Hey, we’re stable with staffing now. Min is a replacement, not a new person.”

  “Even so, we’re running out of money. We need to write some grant applications for round two funding.”

  “What about Graham?”

  “I already asked him for more. He was standoffish and wouldn’t commit to anything. He said he's going to stop by in a few weeks for a checkup, so you need to wow him. But even if he gives us more, it’ll only buy us some time. To keep this project viable, we need more irons in the fire. It’s not good to have only one source of funding.”

  “Agreed. So how do we do this?”

  “I will show you. Take a few days to get Min settled. Then you and I need to focus on getting us some more money.”

  “Understood.”

  Chapter 7 - The Interview

  “If you're having fun being yourself and filming something that you would watch yourself, it becomes contagious for other people to watch, too.” - Zoe Sugg

  Min entered her apartment. Sheila, her roommate, was sitting on the couch painting her toes. She was a knockout, from Australia even, which made her name more than appropriate.

  “Hey babe,” Sheila said. “How’d it go?”

  “Pretty good… I think. Actually, super good if I get it. The project is amazing, one of the best things I've ever seen. This is like a computer science major’s dream internship.”

  “Tell me more, your geekiness.” Sheila was a medical student at the UConn Health Center. On the cafeteria bulletin board, she saw the ad posted for an internship and told Min about it. She didn’t like computers and didn’t understand Min’s fascination with them. But other than that one difference, they got along smashingly.

  “I'd be helping out a bunch of scientists to watch this virtual world. They’ve built a complete ecosystem and have created a bunch of brand new creatures, and a…”

  “Hold it! ‘Built creatures?’ What is this, Frankenstein’s family?”

  “No,” Min chuckled. “Not real creatures. Computer creatures. Like things living inside the computer. They call them Spherians because they exist inside a Sphere. There are a bunch of types of Spherians, but the extra intelligent ones are called Polyans.”

  “Huh? You lost me.”

  “It’s like earthlings and humans. Spherians and Polyans.”

  “Okay, I get the names, but how’s this inside a computer?” Sheila asked.

  Min puckered up her lips, searching for the words to describe it. She wasn't adept at speaking ‘layman.’

  “Listen, why don’t I just show you? I filmed the interview.”

  Her roommate was used to this. Min was a gadget freak, and her ‘spy glasses’ were her favorite. She picked them up years ago from spygear.com and had been wearing them ever since. They looked like ordinary thick-rimmed glasses, which just happened to be in style these days. But hidden in the frame on one side was a miniature camera capable of filming up to two hours of compressed video footage.

  Min took off her glasses, plugged a cable into them, and hooked the other end to the TV. She put the glasses back on and sat facing the screen. It looked like her head was wired to the television, and she was about to do a brain dump, revealing her inner thoughts to the world. She picked up the remote and changed to input one. Then she pressed a concealed button on the inside of the frame of her glasses.

  The screen showed a small windowless office with a plain wooden desk. Behind the desk sat a lean man with chiseled features and short curly dark hair. To one side, only half in view, stood a tall bookcase filled with imposing looking books and a shelf of blurry knickknacks. On the wall over the man hung posters of Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Sheila didn’t recognize any of them.

  “So what attracted you to this position?” asked the man, with a slight accent. Probably French, but Sheila wasn’t sure.

  “That’s Max,” said the real Min to Sheila.

  “I've always loved computers,” answered Min in the video. “I especially like working with data. Not structured data like in databases, but seemingly random data like activity feeds. I love looking for patterns in the randomness, like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “That’s exactly what we need. What did you think of my write-up of the project?”

  “Fascinating,” Min replied.

  “Fascinating!” Sheila interjected. “You're such a nerd. Who are you, a chick from the planet Spock?”

  “The planet Vulcan, jeez. Get your facts straight.”

  Max was saying. “…is going to give us insights into how cultures develop that were before now unachievable. Sure, we’ve visited primitive cultures, and even watched them for long periods of time. In many cases we’ve seen how civilization has influenced them, changed them. But real life moves too slowly, and the sample size is too small, to draw many conclusions. This simulation allows us to see firsthand how cultures can form; how social structures are created; how good must win against evil, or maybe evil can win. Regardless, this experiment will provide insight and knowledge about the human condition that nothing else has ever provided. It’s evolutionary, er, revolutionary.”

  Sheila shook her head. “I have no idea what this guy is saying, but he sure sounds passionate. And he’s kind of hot. I can see you two together, same color hair.”

  “Sheila! This isn't about how hot he is. I’m not in this to find a boyfriend. I’m interested in this work because it’s the coolest thing ever and can ch
ange the world.”

  “Okay yeah, I got that out of what he said, right. Gotcha. He’s still hot. I would date him. Even if I worked with him.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Actually, maybe not. He sounds French. They can be intense. Watch yourself with him.”

  “That’s sooo racist. I didn’t think you were like that.”

  “No, it’s not racist. It’s culturalist. Like he was saying. Maybe I do understand this stuff.”

  Max continued. “…was invented by me. It’s the heart of the operation.” On the video, he handed Min a small chunk of glass. She held it up to her eyes and it filled the screen. At this magnification, it sparkled like a prism made of diamond and had layers of defects inside. “We call it a Qube, which stands for Quantum Uncertainty Binary Engine. I know it’s kind of a cheesy name, but I picked the acronym first and had to come up with something for it to mean. Anyway, whatever it’s called, this is what gives the inhabitants of our world their brains. No, that’s the wrong analogy; their brains have more data than these can hold. It’s more like their soul. There’s enough informational state in one of these to govern their tendencies to make a choice in any given situation, to be their… personality, if you will. Their actual memories are stored in traditional hard drives. Does any of this make sense?”

  “Totally!” exclaimed Min without hesitation. “This is the coolest thing I've heard in a long time. It’s like science fiction, but in real life.”

  “That’s what I was hoping you'd say. We’re breaking new ground here, and everyone on my team needs passion. I was impressed by the analysis you emailed to me. You came up with some clever solutions to my exercises. Not bad for a student at CCSU. So…”

  “Hey, it’s a great school! They teach practical knowledge. Because I'm a numbers geek, I’m just trying to finish up all the required computer science classes to graduate. Statistics is my focus, but to get a degree in Data Analytics requires that you be able to code also, though it’s not my favorite thing.”