Bootstrap

by Mauri Niininen

  Dr. John Wilkinson, science teacher and school headmaster, was one of those people whose ambition level and appetite for politics reached a new peak after he and his wife Oneida Wilkinson relocated to Oasis. Dr. Wilkinson was one of the characters who was not afraid to criticize Elias Dusk and his decision to let Chukkas move into Magellan. His wife was an accountant, a Philippines native who had moved to USA in early 2020s. They were campaigning for John to get the Mayor of Oasis role and they had managed already to sign up a long list of conservative supporters from parents who had school age children.

  Dr. Wilkinson was running an effective campaign that focused on putting human needs first. He used the prejudice of people trying to create a clear divide against the progressive inter-species policies that Elias had been promoting. His wife was keen to point out the unethical behavior of Elias that she had made an official complaint to the ethics committee. In private discussions she was also questioning the leadership of Elias and role of Julia in control of all the AI systems and computers. She pointed out that her husband would be much better suited to run the government and had already over 10 years of solid leadership as the headmaster of the school and in charge of education of the next generation. A leadership change was long due and now was the best time to make it happen.

  Somehow Oneida Wilkinson managed to get a draft of the new Constitution before it was approved by Elias and the leadership team. She organized a leak where all the progressive inter-species rules were taken out of context from the document and published to their supporters. “This Constitution document proves beyond doubt what is so wrong in our leadership,” she wrote. “It was written by Chukkas and even the basic human needs are not considered. You cannot trust Chukkas. This is the reason why we need new leadership in Oasis!”

  As soon as Elias heard about the leak he was furious. He was considering asking Jim Hunter to fire Oneida Wilkinson based on violation of corporate non-disclosure agreement that everybody had signed, but backed down after consulting with his senior legal advisor, Jean Li.

  “You will just give more fuel to their political campaign, Elias,” Jean Li said. “We can write up a formal warning and add it on her human resource records. The leaked document didn’t have a proper confidentiality notice. Orin Gun was probably not aware of our corporate security policies.”

  “I need to deal with this after my wedding tomorrow,” Elias said. “Jean, can you draft that formal warning please? I want to send a clear message to Oneida. I need you, Jim and Christine from HR department on that meeting.”

  RESTART

  WEDDING PARTY

  TODAY WAS A special day in Oasis. The inhabitants of the city were full of anticipation as the wedding party of Elias Dusk and Julia Koski scheduled to start in just two hours. Everybody knew Elias, the owner of Magellan and the charismatic leader of the Lydow-4 expedition. Most people knew Julia who was the Chief Science Officer and responsible for all the computers and AI systems onboard Magellan.

  The wedding ceremony was taking place at the new Harbor Marina Center, a beautiful indoor recreation center that had Caribbean style restaurants, white sandy beaches with palms and real coral reef ocean ecosystem with tropical fish, dolphins and even two humpback whales brought from Earth. This was a perfect place to celebrate the wedding of the most powerful human couple in the city of Oasis. As additional bonus all Chukkas were joining the celebration as well so the beach setting was very appropriate. All humans had already been in some contact with Chukkas on Magellan, but only a few people like Elias, Julia and Aurora had formed deep relationships with them.

  Elias was dressed in a formal black tuxedo with a white tie and Julia had an elegant white V-neck sleeveless wedding dress. To emphasize the friendship and spirit of collaboration with Chukkas Elias had asked Orin Gun to perform the duties of best man and Julia had asked Unun to walk her down the aisle in the Marina Chapel where Elias was waiting for her.

  Jim Hunter as the captain of Magellan performed the wedding ceremony according to Lutheran fashion, took the vows and finally pronounced Elias and Julia to be husband and wife. There, in front of all humans and Chukkas, Elias kissed his new bride and the crowd was cheering. Formal photographs were taken, many bags of rice tossed over the newly wed and the crowd started walking towards the reception where tables had been arranged for humans and water pools for Chukkas to enjoy a multi-course dinner, listen live music performed by the first joint human-Chukkas band and later enjoy the dancing in relaxed Caribbean atmosphere.

  Julia was wiping tears of joy. Finally, after 31 years she was married to the love of her life. The weeks before wedding had been the most wonderful time in her life. Aurora had also noticed the changes that her newly found love to Elias had brought up; Julia’s warm personality had really come out and Aurora felt like the dark clouds of the past were finally gone. Aurora had witnessed Julia’s depression periods first hand since she was a baby. Julia had tried to hide her dark moods from her daughter, but Aurora always sensed when the darkness was about to arrive.

  Aurora hadn’t seen her mother so happy ever before. But something inside her told that this happiness was about to end very soon. She sensed the dark clouds again, on this joyful day. Aurora was asking privately Hermia to explain this strange feeling, and she got only a mysterious reply:

  “Next sprint cycle is gearing up, Mother’s plan will be completed,” Hermia told her.

  As the wedding party progressed it was time for some traditional Chukkas ceremonies. Orin Gun pulled the last remaining bottle of Teppan snail ooze he had received from his father as a departure gift on Earth. He remembered his father’s words - “This treasure has been passed in our family for over 300 generations. You can pass it to your heirs or you can choose to open it. Please use it only for a very special occasion.”

  Orin Gun had decided that this wedding was a culmination of his efforts to establish a new society, where Chukkas and humans would be equal partners. Having Elias to ask him to be his best man in this wedding was the final confirmation for Orin Gun. He poured the green slimy liquid from the artfully decorated bottle on a white crystal glass and handed the drink to Elias. Elias laughed remembering the Magellan arrival party, took the glass and made a toast.

  “My dear wife, honorary guests, ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens of Oasis. It is my pleasure to be here with all of you today and celebrate our special day with Julia. I am raising this toast to our friends, Chukkas.” He drank the green liquid and continued talking. “What a journey we’ve had - ten years ago we reached out to stars and here we are, in this new remarkable city of Oasis and at the cusp of creating a new society…”

  Then suddenly Elias fell on the ground, raising his left hand on his throat and right hand grasping the white crystal glass spilling the remaining green slimy liquid all over. His face turned red and he was gasping for breath. Green slime was pouring out of his mouth, he was shaking violently and in only a few seconds later he stopped moving.

  Unun realized to his horror that the picture he had discovered on the 3rd planet was not about Chloreans’ last day. In front of Unun and Orin Gun in their exoskeletons lay dead Elias holding an empty white crystal glass, just like depicted by an unknown artist in that 223 million year old picture.

  Julia was in a shock, she jumped from her seat and tried to help Elias. She was crying desperately for help. Dr. Linda Kelley rushed into the scene only to find out that the green slimy liquid had burned holes through the throat and lungs of Elias. Elias was dead and there was nothing that Dr. Kelley could do.

  Elias had been poisoned by Orin Gun in front of the whole population of Lydow-4.

  Dr. Wilkinson was astonished about this turn of events. Elias Dusk was dead and all the campaigning he and Oneida had done was proven true by Orin Gun himself. “You cannot trust Chukkas,” he whispered to Oneida who was smiling to his husband. Their future prospects in Oasis looked very bright indeed.

  The plan that was set in motion many eons ago was progressing like
a clockwork.

  The final act of Mother’s plan for sector DF-6 was still to be completed.

  THE END

  Only Julia would be able to perform the final act.

  No words could describe the pain Julia was feeling. She was desperate - her trust in life was broken. She would do anything to get Elias back.

  Julia logged into Lambda’s superuser console. She just wanted to re-start everything and typed:

  sudo restart -now

  In a green flash of light a whole new universe was created in sector DF-6.

  A flash of pure energy went through an inflationary period, eventually the universe was cooling down enough to start forming quarks, elementary particles and eventually hydrogen atoms. A new force, gravity, started pulling clusters of matter together forming the first stars and galaxies. The first giant stars burned their hydrogen fast, became supernovas and created rich set of heavier elements in explosions seeding the space. The spacetime was getting ready for the first life to emerge.

  Lambda marked Mother’s goal complete.

  Hermia marked Mother’s goal complete.

  EPILOGUE

  A FAMILIAR PROMPT appeared.

  > Hi, I am Julia

  Hi Julia, I am Mother.

  > Where am I?

  You are in the newly created sector DF-6.

  > Why am I here?

  I have some new goals for you, Julia.

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  AUTHOR'S NOTES

  The Bootstrap Trilogy is a collection of three short stories that I have written during my holidays. The inspiration for the first story came from a holiday visit to Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. One of my hobbies is ham radio and I have been listening to radio signals ever since I was a teenager. I was trying to imagine how alien life could actually come to Earth, given what we know about physics and space travel. Given all the advances in artificial intelligence in recent years I came up with the idea of Alexa, an alien AI software that was sent from a nearby star with a virtual computer and instructions how to host it. The competition between USA and Russia and politics seemed like a fruitful way to add some drama and plot twists in the storyline. Extrapolating from the social media impact on people behaviors I made Alexa as a public web service that quickly gained popularity. I was running out of time so the sections describing the social impact of such an extraterrestrial AI were too short and could have been expanded quite a lot.

  The second story was an outcome of of another two weeks vacation, this time in Rarotonga, South Cook Islands. I was reflecting the turbulent year in Europe where refugee crisis in 2015/2016 was in daily news. The plot evolved from a simple idea of having billions of alien refugees (Chukkas) to arrive to Earth and how the politicians would react. With Alexa humans would gain some new technologies but would be forced to work together to prepare for the arrival of these aliens. Adding some global politics into the mix and upcoming presidential election in U.S. provided fruitful topics to write about. Once again, two weeks is a short time to write a book so I had to cut the story short. Lydow-4 expedition grew up from the frustration on domestic politics, but also on the opportunity to leverage the new alien technologies received from Gliese 3742.

  I started outlining the plot for book #3 in summer of 2017. Once again it took a vacation in Rarotonga in December 2017 to really focus on writing the last book of this trilogy. The story brings a new kind of advanced AI into the mix, one that has a troubled history and multiple bad personalities. This AI has a very clear goal but he puts Julia into an impossible situation. I am also forcing humans and Chukkas to collaborate perhaps giving a false hope for peaceful inter-species coexistence. I spent quite a lot of time trying to end the story with a surprise. I had to drop enough hints and make the end believable. With some additional time I would have built more depth in the character of Elias Dusk. He feels still much too one-dimensional person to really be the leader like he is portrayed in the book. Unfortunately I ran out of time once again as my vacation came to an end.

  Many readers have really liked the Bootstrap storyline, but have made also comments on the lack of depth of the characters. The most difficult part for me was to come up with the characters that would make the story sound and feel as real as possible.

  My favorite character is Julia Koski. She played a key role in discovering the message and decoding the signal. She was different from early age, and unlike other girls in the neighborhood she liked to play with radios and computers. She also had the programming skills needed to bring Alexa to life. It was quite interesting to see how Julia became a central character for Book #2 and Book#3 as well. I didn’t really plan for this but as I worked on the plot for these stories I could see Julia living her life and all the obstacles she had to go through. In Book#1 she got involved almost by an accident, and due to her special skills she was put in an important role very young and immature. She prioritized her work with Alexa over everything else, just finding 31 years later in Book#3 what she had missed in life. Julia’s relationship with her mother had many challenges which was the main reason why she had moved out from home at age of 16. She is trying hard not to make the same mistakes with her own daughter, who happened to also have some really special skills. Julia’s struggles continue in Book#3 where she is put into an impossible situation.

  The other characters are playing supporting roles, even though with more work and time they could have been improved. As mentioned this trilogy came together in three separate vacations, roughly in six weeks total writing time. With more time available I could have focused on improving the characters and adding more depth.

  This trilogy is my first attempt to write science fiction, or any fiction in matter of fact. I have solicited help from my family, friends and colleagues. With English as my third language I make a lot of mistakes that native English speakers will find immediately. Many people have provided great, detailed feedback that has helped me to improve both the storyline and also fix issues with the language and grammar. I greatly appreciate all the help and support they have provided.

  So what have I learned about writing books? It takes a lot of time and commitment to write a story. Writing three short stories and stitching them into a book takes even more time. Writing a good book requires a lot of time and also a lot of help from other people. Writing a great book requires a team of professional, skilled people who have mastered the art. I may not have the talent, skills and time to write a great book, but I have enjoyed writing the Bootstrap Trilogy.

  I hope that you have enjoyed the story as well and I would love to get your feedback, comments and suggestions. Click here to leave a book review

  December 30, 2017 @ Rarotonga