The Aegis Solution

by John David Krygelski

  "I didn't know that."

  "It's true. Here's another example. Beta fighting fish are natural territorial enemies. Anyone who owns an aquarium knows that if you put two in the tank, they will fight to the death."

  "True."

  "An experiment was done where two Betas were put into a tank, but they were separated by a pane of glass. The glass was invisible to them, but they could see each other. They would both repeatedly slam themselves into the glass, trying to get at the other, trying to fight, until they both eventually learned they couldn't do it. They stopped trying. At that point, the glass was removed. The barrier was gone. Yet for the rest of their lives, they never once tried to cross that middle point of the tank; they had learned earlier that it was impossible."

  "Is that true? They would never cross the line for the rest of their lives?"

  "Never. And there are many other similar anecdotes and experiments which contain the same lesson, experiments using all sorts of animals. These experiments have been described by motivational speakers for years, trying to explain to eager salesmen and middle managers that our limitations are self-imposed."

  "Did these experiments put you on your path of interest?"

  "Actually, no. There were two events in my personal life which set my course, one small and the other quite significant.

  "The first occurred when I was a boy of nine or ten. We had a dog, a springer spaniel, which stayed outside in our backyard. The yard was surrounded by a block wall, six feet high; and, for years, Sneezix was perfectly happy in his environment. Then, one day I looked out one of our rear windows into the yard and saw that there was another dog with Sneezix. They were playing and romping together, and I assumed that my sister must have left our gate open. I went out back. My arrival spooked the stray dog, and he quickly ran across the length of the yard, directly at the block wall. I was certain he was going to turn at the last moment, that he was simply panicked and was running mindlessly. Instead, right in front of me, this small dog, perhaps the size of a beagle, scampered up the face of the wall and over the top.

  "I had never seen a dog do this before. He didn't jump the wall. He couldn't. With a running start, he just scratched and clawed his way up and over. I checked the gate and it was closed and locked, so obviously the stray had entered in the same fashion.

  "I realized later than Sneezix had also never seen such a feat, but he only needed to see it once because he instantly attempted the same thing. He ran. With a sound of his nails against the block wall, he tried to scratch his way to the top. He fell back, got up, and tried it again. I watched, fascinated. He did not stop. He did not rest. Despite the fact that his paws were soaked with blood, over and over again he tried, getting slightly higher each time. Within an hour, he made it over the top.

  "From that day forth, we were unable to keep him contained in the yard. His repeated forays into the neighborhood resulted in our having to pick him up from the dog pound twice. We trimmed his nails almost to the quick, thinking it would stop him. It didn't. We chained him with a long chain, only to have a neighbor spot Sneezix hanging on the outside of our wall, his hind paws not quite touching the ground. Our spaniel had clambered over the wall, even while chained. The neighbor lifted him and unhooked the chain, bringing him to us. That poor dog, nearly dead, lay panting mightily for twenty minutes before he got up and scooted right over the wall.

  "Eventually, the dog catcher picked him up a third time, and my father refused to pay the fee. I never saw Sneezix again. But what I learned from the whole fiasco was that it only took one example from the stray dog to show Sneezix that something was possible, something he didn't believe was possible a moment before. And once he saw it, he wouldn't rest until he did it himself. That lesson never departed; it was always in the back of my mind, unformed and unfulfilled until I attended university. It was my personal involvement in an attempt to replicate a well-documented feat from the distant past that crystallized my theory."

  Elias said nothing, waiting.

  "The physical prowess of men from a thousand or more years ago has been recorded in song, story, picture, and poem countless times – descriptions of the rowing of warships, athletic competitions, voyages, battles. The historical record is rich with very detailed accounts which have provided measurable and replicable feats.

  "Take the simple act of throwing a rock. Going back as far as cave paintings, there are depictions of hunters who understood the necessity of staying far enough away from dangerous beasts in order to remain alive. It was the desire for distance that eventually resulted in the perfection of firearms. But the primitives used rocks. From the pictographic evidence, we surmised that they would sneak up on tigers or other beasts, perhaps as the animals slept or ate a kill, and the men would hurl a rock, dealing a stunning, if not fatal, blow. Apparently, the vast majority of the human race has lost the ability to throw with the distance, force, and accuracy it once possessed, when that was an integral part of the hunting or defense regimen."

  "Vast majority? There are some who can still perform at that level?"

  "There are. There are small pockets of primitive tribes who have, within their group, men who possess a throwing ability which far exceeds that of our greatest baseball pitchers today, in terms of speed, accuracy, and distance."

  "I wasn't aware of that."

  "It's true. The documentation is plentiful. However, it was rowing which truly captured my attention."

  "Rowing?"

  "Yes. During college, I was quite involved in athletics, including the rowing team. A notice was posted on campus, asking for volunteers to replicate an ancient voyage. A professor studying the Athenian culture had obtained, from several sources, adequate plans so that he could replicate a trireme."

  "A trireme?"

  "An Athenian warship, thirty-seven meters long, which was propelled by three levels of oarsmen. There are nearly countless descriptions of voyages taken by these vessels, with much detail. A particular voyage the professor wanted to replicate occurred when the Athenians wished to quell a revolt in Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean. At first, the assembly ordered that all Mytilene's males be put to death. They immediately sent off a trireme to accomplish this. A day later they had second thoughts and ordered another trireme to catch the first before it could arrive and carry out the order. The second ship, with 170 oarsmen, would have made the journey in approximately twenty-four hours.

  "So, this professor knew the distance and had constructed an exact replica of a trireme. All he needed were the oarsmen – thus, the posted notice. Many of the members of the rowing team, having recently come off from winning a national championship, were enchanted with the prospect of competing with an ancient record, as were several other athletes. He had no problem filling the roster with a group of young men in amazing physical condition. His plan was to transport the trireme to the Aegean and replicate the exact route, but first he wanted to test it out with his new crew.

  "Since the size and configuration of the boat was so different from the sleek and lightweight boats to which we were accustomed in competitions, we spent four months training with the replica of the trireme. The regimen was rigorous and was supervised by a team of three Olympic coaches. During the course of our first trial, we were cohesive as a team and at the peak of our performance. The weather was perfect and the sea was calm, ideal conditions to go against an ancient record."

  "I'm guessing that the record wasn't beaten."

  A short laugh, not unlike the bark of a dog, burst from Kreitzmann. "Beat the record? Not only could we not beat it, we couldn't tie it. In fact, we couldn't even come close."

  "You're not serious?"

  "I am! The best we did was less than half the distance the ancient Athenian ship traveled that day in a twenty-four-hour period."

  "Less than half?"

  "Less than half! And according to the descriptions of the event by historians of the day, they did it with one crew of oarsmen. Those descriptions must b
e true; there was physically not enough room on a trireme to accommodate a second shift of men on board. We had a total of 350 oarsmen, enough for two shifts with a few extras in case of injuries. A modern yacht paced the trireme to transfer the two crews. We rowed in six-hour shifts, with six hours to rest. The ancients did it with one crew and, when they arrived at the destination, the rowing crew had to be in a condition strong enough to then engage in battle."

  "That's astounding."

  "It's more than astounding; it's revelatory. The scientific community began to theorize as to why there would be such a disparity between these men of the past and our best athletes today. The theories have ranged from society coddling us so that we no longer need the same abilities, to actually putting forth the idea that our genetics have changed in a mere few thousand years. Preposterous!

  "That event, intended as a pleasant and challenging diversion for me, triggered what would become the focus of the rest of my life. I immediately began researching any and all comparable efforts. Everything I discovered led me to one inescapable conclusion."

  He paused. Uncertain if the pause was for dramatic effect, or if Kreitzmann was waiting for a question, Elias remained silent.

  "The eternal question among evolutionary biologists and others is – is it nature or nurture? How much of who and what we are is genetic, and how much is a result of the environment?"

  "True. You seem to have opted for nurture."

  "We have certainly placed our emphasis on the environment. Saying that, however, does not paint the entire picture. Genetics would only be genetics. It is the canvas upon which we paint our reality, its borders establishing the outside boundaries of what we can do. But to actualize ourselves, we need more than a blank canvas. We need examples, as Sneezix needed the example of that stray dog, in order to discover an ability he did not know he had. This goes far beyond the simple concept of nurture. I call my field exemplarium behavior modeling.

  "Wasn't the performance of the Athenian oarsman an example?"

  "No. Hearing about something…reading about it…any form of learning and awareness other than direct experience does not have the same effect. At least that is my conclusion after twenty-three years of study. It is essential for the behavior, skill, or ability to be directly perceived. Mankind has a nearly boundless ability to deny and rationalize. Remember the repetitive attempts by Sneezix – the painful falls, the bloody paws. Transfer that experience to a man and, if he hadn't seen the deed with his own eyes, he would give up, deciding that it wasn't really possible after all."

  "That's probably true."

  "Not probably true…true. I've proved it in my studies."

  "Other than the display of telepathy, what are the applications of your new field?"

  "They are almost limitless. Think about it, Patrick. My work has only scratched the surface. There is probably no aspect of what we do, see, hear, smell, or even think that can't be enhanced by immersion in a new exemplarium."

  Forcing a look of mild skepticism onto his face, Elias spoke thoughtfully. "I admit, I'm impressed by the apparent strides toward telepathy that you've made. But I have a concern."

  Visibly suppressing vexation at Elias' words, the researcher inquired, "What might that be?"

  Elias knew he was walking a tightrope. On one hand, he was portraying an ostensibly like-minded scientist who had previously exhibited a dislike or even contempt for humanity. On the other hand, his own urge to shout out his rebuttals to Kreitzmann's positions was practically overwhelming.

  Choosing his words carefully, Elias broached the subject. "Have you considered the possibility that, over the entire continuum of human development on Earth, some of what you are coaxing from your subjects has already been tried and rejected?"

  It was obvious, by the evasive darting of his eyes and momentary quizzical expression, that Kreitzmann had not considered this point.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I haven't seen nor have we discussed the specifics of your other projects; however, expressly dealing with the one I've observed, what if we weren't meant to have telepathic abilities?"

  "Oh, not the old ‘If God meant for us to fly, we'd have wings' argument."

  "Not exactly, Rudy. What I'm saying is that it is possible that at one time humans, or earlier hominids, did communicate with their minds. If the mechanism is already there, why not?"

  "Go on."

  "What if there was something inherently counterproductive about it? I'll give you an example. Perhaps very early man was a loner, rather than tribal, and perhaps this early man could read minds. In such a situation, I can see how the ability would be quite beneficial and there would be very little, if any, downside. Any other human being he or she encountered would be a territorial threat. Reading the mind of the other to know what was planned would be an obvious positive. The better at it the individual was, the higher the probability would be to vanquish the other and survive.

  "But as man evolved and it became obvious that there were numerous benefits to banding together and forming primitive societies, the invasiveness of telepathy might have hindered that direction, might have suddenly become a detriment. Every time a fellow tribesman lusted after another's wife, there would have been conflict and strife within the group. Every time one felt envious of another's cave or tree or food stock, there would have been problems and mistrust. I think that tribal life would have created a need to take the other members at face value, to rely upon what they decided to speak, rather than what they thought. It allowed, in a sense, humans to install a filter between their spontaneous thoughts and urges, and their deliberately spoken words and consciously thought-out deeds. Darwinian selection would have given the tribes without telepathy an advantage of social cohesion, which could have eventually dampened the ability to the point where it is now.

  "In other words, maybe it's been tried and the human race decided they didn't like it. You could, in effect, be opening an old can of worms."

  Throughout Elias' entire speech, Kreitzmann sat calmly, absorbing his words. With the final comment, he replied, "You could be right. I hadn't considered that possibility. But" – he placed the palms of his hands flat upon the table – "it isn't our purpose to second-guess. The point of our research is to uncover the buried or underdeveloped skills and bring those out. It will be up to them to retain or discard as they see fit."

  "Them?"

  "The beneficiaries of our work."

  CHAPTER NINE

  The discussion ended, Kreitzmann once again led Elias through a maze of interconnecting hallways. As they walked, the scientist, sounding more like a tour guide than an amoral monster, pointed out each of the labs they passed, and what work was being conducted in each.

  "This is our computer interface lab. In this module, we are immersing subjects in computer code, rather than English."

  "What is your goal here?"

  "Our goal with every one of our projects is the same. Just as a chemist creates compound after compound, testing each one until he finds a formula with the desired properties, we make no value judgment with regard to each possibility. We merely develop every conceivable skill which has the potential for benefiting from exemplarium immersion, and then we throw it into the mix. We only attempt to discover if a skill, ability, or talent is possible. Once that is done, it will be up to the group to retain or discard the newly uncovered ability.

  "In this project, we are taking a different approach from the human/computer interface labs, as well as the artificial intelligence labs. They are all struggling to make computers adapt and comply with us. Where they continue to run afoul is with the sloppy nature of our thoughts and languages. The very nature of the computer is that it is logical and precise. Everything is black and white, on or off. With humans, everything is gray. Attempting to create a true bridge between them is not possible as long as those two facts are true. Computer engineers have gone further and further afield in an attempt to make computers more like us, with fuzzy logic and s
o on. We are approaching the same problem from the other side. Here, we are raising a group of subjects who know only the logical and precise language of the computer. They also live in an environment where only black-and-white, logical behavior and criteria in their day-to-day living are rewarded. Patrick, you will be astounded at the ability these subjects have to interface with the computers."

  "As you are doing in the telepathy lab, are you teaching them English once they have mastered code as their first language?"

  "No need. There are a variety of off-the-shelf software programs that accomplish that for us."

  "Word processing?"

  "Exactly. That is the beauty of humans communicating in code. With a viable human/computer interface, which we've already perfected, all that is needed is to open a word processing program, and we can talk directly to the subjects and they can answer. With text-to-speech programs, we can easily converse with them."

  "The interface? What type of terminal do you utilize?"

  "Not a terminal. No keyboard. No mouse. The interface is direct."

  "Direct? Do you mean…?"

  "Implants with connect/disconnect jacks. The subjects can plug in or unplug as they wish, although we've noticed that their desire to unplug is quite rare."

  They had walked well past the computer interface lab. The door had been closed, so Elias' mind, without benefit of a glimpse inside, was free to run rampant, creating a surreal scene of these young children with shaved heads and USB ports embedded in their skulls, wires dangling. He felt, once again, the surge of adrenalin which would normally be the precursor to a violent physical attack on Kreitzmann. With a monumental exertion of will power, Elias tamped down his furor and continued walking beside this soulless being masquerading as a man.