Collective Mind
by Vasily Klyukin
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner, except my best friend, an outstanding painter, Andrei Sharov. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Part one
Chapter one
The future is not what you think. That’s for sure. The past is a heap of errors and distortions, where the truth is concealed beneath strata of ambiguities and propaganda, the future is something completely different. You imagine it wrong. We can’t predict what the world will look like in five years, and even less so in 10 years. Even more difficult to determine is the path of our own lives and the lives that surround us.
Five years ago, I was twenty-three, and a graduate of a highly prestigious university. I had the whole world at my feet, and my whole life ahead of me. Since being presented with a beautiful diploma with my name — “Isaac Leroy” — embossed on it in gold, I haven’t come across any more gold anywhere. Back then, it seemed like there was a whole ocean of opportunities.
My family, concerned for the future, moved to Côte d’Azur while I was still in school. We moved to the Principality of Monaco, not to the central district of Monte Carlo, as one might imagine a foreigner may relocate. Hordes of rich people and all sorts of brainy types live there, and it seemed like the best possible place to build a brilliant future.
Now I’m twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight, and I’m an inventor and a barman. I still live in Monaco, the European paradise. It’s not as big of a deal as you might think, because I’ve got absolutely zilch money. The sun and sea are free but everything else has to be paid for. Today is the last day like this, this evening I’ll have stacks of money…unfortunately
When I was a teenager I probably read too many Jules Verne novels and watched too many movies, all kinds. I craved adventures and discoveries, envied the young professor in the film Godzilla and the cool nerve of Jean Reno’s character. I saw myself in the future, traveling through America, Kampuchea, Kenya, Belize, and making appearances at scientific exhibitions and congresses.
It’s not right to say dreams don’t come true. But the way they turn out can be very different from the way you imagine. You have to desire something in precise, concrete terms, sketching in even the tiniest details in your mind, or else. I dreamt of America, and I got it, sort of like “The American Stars’N’Bars”. That was the name of the bar in Port Hercules where I was working now. As it happens, the owner looked like Einstein and had a temperament every bit as ferocious as Godzilla. Dumb, like most bosses are, but somehow rolling in money.
I’ve been to Tunisia, England and Thailand, not as an explorer, but as a regular tourist. I’ve never been to the United States, the most advanced place of all, seemingly created for brilliant and talented minds. Even the Prince of Monaco got his education there. I’ve dreamt and I’ve desired – but being broke is a curse!
I have had some good, even very good, scientific ideas. But I’ve only been published in a University journal, and I’ve never taken part in a single scientific congress or spoken at one. True enough, I have had moments of genuine fame, although only among the student scientific community. But I’ve been earning my living working as an evening barman
I rolled out of bed in my cheap apartment on the boundary between Monaco and Beausoleil, drank a coffee and immediately woke up. A view into nowhere from the window. Although I liked my “nowhere” – the wall of the next building, covered in cracks, which was the only “view” to greet me from my window.
On the plus side, it’s shady where I live and not too hot which is important since I only have a fan, and no air conditioning. The cracks in the wall are really funky, practically a piece of art. They form a mysterious cobweb, like a tangle of electric wires on a pole in Bangkok – intertwining, disappearing, twisting and turning, and leaving you with the eternal question of the meaning of life. Everything intersects with everything, everyone intersects with everyone, and it’s all connected. You never know for certain which wire leads where.
Rivulets of water – warm, hot, icy, then hot again – revived me. I hate my shower: it has zero pressure and on top of that, the water temperature’s always changing! The defective shower is just like my life, either scalding me with heat or dousing me with icy cold. It is never possible to predict what will hit you next while you are standing there, cringing in anticipation of yet another glacial deluge. You just want to slice off the soap quick and jump out.
My life was a stingy, defective shower today too. I’d been living for the last five years with only a vague idea of my day after tomorrow. Maybe someone with everything running calmly and smoothly might actually envy me a bit. After all, it’s challenging not to have a plan of meetings set out for the week, or weekends planned in advance, or a business development strategy set out by your boss for years ahead, or working weeks with occasional patches of leave. But living like I do is interesting for a week or a month, two at most. After that, this kind of life can drive you nuts.
No matter how any of us live, we all try to do what seems right. What a shame we’re not insured against mistakes. Even if the soul is immortal, we can’t make use of the experience of previous incarnations. They used to remove people’s tonsils as being unnecessary. They even saw an upside to it – the chances of developing strep throat were cut way down. It was cool, take out something you don’t need and it does you good! But a couple of decades later it became clear that tonsils were an essential element of the human immune system, and no way should they be extracted!
Now that colossal breakthrough in technology, the Collective Mind, has put an end to strep throat, amongst other things, without removing any tonsils, and without disrupting the human immune system.
Nothing in human life is superfluous, nothing is unnecessary. There are things we don’t understand the importance of, or we misunderstand it. Take for instance dreams. They’re not useless. They affect our mood and prompt us to take action. But what kind of action? I certainly wasn’t overjoyed about the action in store for me today.
I would think about anything, just to avoid getting dressed and getting to the download center to submit to the damn procedure. I wanted to drag things out since thinking is also work. My typical excellent displacement mechanism. Thinking about dreams, the future, anything at all to avoid getting ready to go but it’s time, unfortunately.
Rain started lashing down. Goodbye, sun! Today is a day that will change my life. Sadly, not for the better, and not temporarily, like the rain, but forever.
Chapter two
I walked along the street, taking my time. Monaco stands on terraces above the sea, but if you know the city, you can always avoid walking uphill, despite the steep terrain. Just go down to the nearest lift, ride up from there and walk down a bit again to the next lift. You can get right up to the top that way.
But today’s stroll was the last time that I could walk along and ruminate, imagining and fantasizing. I didn’t care that it was raining, a rarity in Monaco, I was in no hurry to get where I was going. The route I took was by no means the shortest. For the last time I walked past the Stars’N’Bars, where I worked my final shift yesterday. They gave me a warm send-off, and even Godzilla muttered something encouraging. Alcohol was off limits for twenty-four hours before downloading, so everyone drank except me, wishing me good luck.
Straight ahead was a very long stairway up the hill to the district of Monaco-Ville where the Prince’s Palace is, as well as the Oceanographic Museum and Saint Nicholas Cathedral where Princess Grace is buried. Miniature trains regularly carry tourists up there. On a n
ormal day, it would never have occurred to me to clamber all the way up those steps on foot, but today it did. Today I walked up, stopping at the observation platforms, admiring the view of the port and the city. Everything appeared the same as usual. Lots of yachts in the port, people walking somewhere and cars driving along. Heaps of tourists. I’d grown very fond of this place, and now I was saying goodbye to it. According to the contract, after I go through downloading I would at first live in a Belle Provence guesthouse in France, not far from Theoule.
The Ministry building, at the top of the hill housed a large number of various local and international service agencies, including the Download Center of UNICOMA and the UN Collective Mind agency. It was an inviting building on a diminutive little square, but I didn’t feel like going in yet.
The overcast, rainy weather reflected my state of mind. I didn’t want to download my creativity, the creative action potential, my God-given power of original thinking that was enhanced through years of schooling. But I didn’t have any other way out, I needed money. The bank had given me a final warning and my apartment had to be auctioned off. I had no way to pay, and more importantly, Vicky needed another brain tumor surgery.
My little gadget droned away quietly in my pocket. Apart from the people with umbrellas, I was the only dry person walking in the street. The idea behind this little device, which had not yet been developed to its full potential, was unique: a direction finder caught and collected the energy of falling raindrops, then used a mini-projector to generate around a person a small magnetic field that didn’t allow the water through into the invisible dome. I stood there in the rain, but remained absolutely dry. My only joy for today was that I got to use my own invention. There would be money today too. The money was for Vicky, but she would have done the same for me.
I felt bitter having to sell my creativity when I was so close to my goal. The “V-Rain” prototype was ready. But as usual, there wasn’t enough time. The surgery was scheduled for Monday, but no funds had been transferred to the clinic yet. The payment wouldn’t appear out of nowhere, so I had to get hold of some money. I’d already been to a consultation and preliminary assessment, and I knew I had a very high creativity index. If sold, it would bring enough money to pay for a house or a guest house, and the surgery. And all sorts of things I’d have absolutely no need for any longer.
It has been almost two years since my university friend Pascal sold his creativity. We always sat next to each other at lectures, designed all sorts of gadgets. We would go out clubbing together, pickup girls, smoke grass and race about on our bikes. We spent hours and hours together in Professor Firstein’s lab where I invented the principle of collecting the energy of falling drops and the repulsive field generator. But without Pascal’s amplifier, I couldn’t have combined the inventions into the end product. That was my former friend’s contribution.
Six months before Pascal offloaded his creativity; he met Eva and fell head over heels in love with her. The beautiful, leggy brunette’s blue eyes literally drove him out of his mind. And I must admit she was quite a sight. I’d never have had the nerve to approach a girl like that. But Pascal got to know her immediately, he was never afraid of losing. “The guy who loses least often is the one who never tries,” that was his favorite expression.
Pascal abandoned his studies, stopped coming to the lab and started looking for ways to earn money on the side. He took to drinking. Too many rich guys were hanging around Eva. There’s no shortage of them in Monaco, competing with their resources to give her lush presents, taking her to the best restaurants, or suggesting a trip anywhere on earth. It was just too tough, even for a smart guy like Pascal. Pascal and Eva dated, and even started living together, but it obviously wasn’t going to last. Romance fades rapidly in poverty. Eva was finding less and less time for Pascal, she just couldn’t make her mind up and move out and kept putting it off. Basically she was a really good girl, but who can resist temptations? Why on earth would a beautiful young woman sit in a cheap bar with Pascal, when her suitors were showering her with invitations to hot clubs and yacht trips? Pascal sensed this, Eva drove him wild with jealousy, and he started getting drunk regularly.
I felt guilty because I wasn’t able to stop my friend from deciding to sell his creativity, even though there was nothing in particular that I could have done. Every conversation we had in those final weeks ended in a quarrel. In the end Pascal simply swore at me and threw me out, like he was totally insane and a week later he sold his creativity. Even though we were friends, we never really got to say goodbye and that drove me crazy. They gave Pascal a massive payment since he had the highest creativity level at an important University. As part of the contract, UNICOMA gave him a swanky townhouse in Rocquebrune, in the brand new Rocks residential estate, beautiful furniture, electronic gear, a brand new Maserati, a few classy pieces of jewelry for Eva and that was it.
Everything included in the list and stipulated in the UNICOMA contract was delivered impeccably. A substantial sum was deposited into Pascal’s bank account. Only he couldn’t spend it, now that he’d been left with the imagination of a truck driver. Inventive, impetuous Pascal instantly transformed into a boring, primitive individual, a “Veggie,” as we called them. He didn’t need money any more, he simply couldn’t think of anywhere to spend it or anything to spend it on. He didn’t have ideas any more, his ideas had been sold. And yet Pascal appeared very content. A Happy.
Eva left him two months later. At first she couldn’t believe what had happened to her Pascal! That sparkling wit and subtle sense of humor had evaporated in an instant. Pascal had fizzled out and no vast amounts of money and luxurious apartments could compensate for the nauseating boredom that had erupted into their relationship. Eva couldn’t believe this transformation, she loved Pascal. For the first month she fought it, trying to find an answer, and for the second she simply cried her heart out. And then she left. When it happened, Pascal wasn’t upset at all; he just asked if she’d be back tomorrow or not. Eva said no. Pascal just smiled and said: “OK!”
Chapter three
Twelve years ago Jeremy Link, a Professor at the University of London who taught in the biology department and was a doctor of bioenergetics, invented a way of measuring the energy responsible for an individual’s originality, fantasy and imagination. He called it “orange energy”, or simply OE, the basis of creativity, which every human being possesses at varying levels. Three years later he successfully downloaded creativity for the first time, and two years after that he learned how to store it and utilize it. In the same year he added to his depositary the creativity of 30 dying scientists who volunteered. He called the computer that ran on OE “Collective Mind” and its measuring unit – Human Imagination Tone.
It was a revolutionary breakthrough! The scientific world, the TV and the press literally went crazy. The human fantasy stored in the server became a kind of super-potent biological data base. A lab technician linked in to Collective Mind temporarily acquired the pooled creativity of all the people whose individual OE had been downloaded. An idea that was previously incomplete immediately became concrete, complete and meaningful. Virtually any problem was processed by the computer like a simple jigsaw puzzle. The missing pieces became as clear as if they were traced out on paper, the gaps were analyzed, and the idea itself was completed and finalized.
To impress the scientists and journalists who gathered at the press conference for the presentation of his invention, Jeremy Link uttered just one short phrase to his lab assistant: “A treatment for cancer”. The assistant put on a helmet connected to Collective Mind, flipped the “on” switch and started typing on an ordinary laptop. After precisely two minutes, he took off the helmet. The professor went across to the lab technician and projected the result of his work onto a large screen. The image that appeared was a mass of formulae. “This is the most effective treatment for cancer, gentlemen!” For several seconds there was dead silence. Then the hall exploded into applause and p
eople were weeping. Two years later the machine found out how to eliminate cancer completely.
Human beings aren’t computers, they can’t concentrate intensely enough to visualize the detailed picture. Now this had become possible. How many technologies and inventions had we missed out on because of overlooked details? And how many scientists had wrestled with a problem, each one of them solving it 60 or 70 per cent from different angles, but never reaching a solution? Now their partial solutions were combined in Collective Mind to produce 100 per cent!
A brilliant idea might have seemed impossible to implement, utopian, but the answer was really within easy reach. How many scientists died without ever bringing their research to a conclusion? Their ideas have gone with them.
The internet, social networks and world press exploded at once, competing with exalted headlines: “World’s first artificial mind”, “Safe artificial intellect created”, “Everyone can become part of Mega Brain”, “All experience in one”; even “Future is here” and “First step to immortality”. People were taking part in numerous discussions about the prospects of the new invention. They offered to name the measuring unit after Professor Link, but he refused firmly, saying HIT was enough.
And the hit it really was!
Dr. Link made the discovery of the century…of the millennium and quite possibly the most important discovery ever made by mankind. A lab assistant connected to Collective Mind could easily solve problems from different areas of science, from nuclear physics to linguistics, without the slightest stress or damage to his own health. By amalgamating creativity the world started getting answers to thousands of questions.
Initially Collective Mind’s capacity grew in almost geometric progression with each new download of creativity. Energy is energy, it doesn’t matter where and how it has been obtained. It’s the same in people of different races and religions, it has no language barriers, and it’s not infected with either viruses or bigotry. Collective Mind made it possible to combine people’s potential from the most varied specialties. A chemist and a physicist, a musician and a painter, an astronomer and a chef. Combining them all, mingling them together. The energy multiplied its capacity, filling in more and more of the gaps in different problems. By combining the energy and talents of seven middle school pupils, the programming produced the hypothetical intellect of an Einstein!
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