by J. H. Boldt
In the beginning of the twenty-first century a third definition was added. In the last century the scientific community found that our world fit into two categories. Everything is either matter or energy. Through mathematics it was discovered that matter and energy are the same thing. We used that information to build a bomb. The new discovery is information. It can be bought and sold. Information can be stored. Information is not matter or energy. It is truly in a category of its own.
In the last century mankind began to use and understand electricity. At first we used it to light our homes. The vacuum tube was invented. It was the first junction. By using a small current to control a large one, radio was born. Further experiments produced transistors. They were smaller, used less energy and are more economical to create. By the end of the century millions of transistors “or junctions” were packed into a chip. They could be used to store and manipulate information. By using the telephone lines already in place, the internet was created. Everyone could know everything in an instant. Radio waves were used to make the internet portable. People were connected everywhere they went. By the end of that century chips were implanted under people’s skin, they could access doors, buy and sell goods and provide proof of identity with their implant.
By the third decade of the twenty-first century mankind had created a new material. It was a gelatinous mass, a synthetic material that would replace chips. It was a man made nerve cell. A junction in the form of a neuron. The creator named it Naan. That word in central Asia means bread or the “substance of life”. The Naan was kept in a liquid, a pure form of plasma. The Naan could be programed.
The first experiment was conducted. The Naan was loaded into a syringe, and injected into a willing participant. This experiment was different from an implant. The Naan would circulate through the bloodstream until it reached the cerebral cortex, and then attach itself. It had only been programed to do one job, turn on the patient's natural telepathy. All people have telepathic abilities, in most people it is not turned on. Every person's brain works at a different frequency. Even if it is turned on in two people in the same place, the odds of them communicating is small. It's the same odds as one person's garage door opener opening someone else's garage. The purpose of the Naan was to communicate with a computer. Once the patient had been injected, it took five days before he could complete the test. Each day the computer would display the backside of a playing card. The participant would try to guess the card. By the fifth day he would get it right every time.
The next test was to see if they could control his body functions. A special software program had to be written. He sat in a chair in a dimly lit room, a technician sat at the computer. The monitor had vision information on it. He adjusted the contrast and then the color and clarity. In the room the patient's vision was getting better. It wasn't much different from setting up a television. The next screen was hormones and blood sugar, with a few key taps the patient no longer had diabetes. The technician increased the metabolism, as he pushed the up key a bar on the monitor moved up. In the coming month the patient would lose weight. Unlike the old method of taking pills, changing the controls of his body using electronics had no side effects. Over time the pharmaceutical companies were making Naan. It had become the new wonder drug.
The telepathy worked in both directions, a program was written for the courts. On the monitor they could see a person's past. Now the same images in someone's mind, that is to say, someone's memory could be played on a monitor. A man named James had been accused of murder. He was injected with Naan and after five days he was tested with the cards. He got every one right. In front of a jury he was questioned. On the monitor they watched him kill his friend, just as it was in his memory. He was convicted and sentenced, death by lethal injection. Before the day of his punishment, a witness came into the police station, she said she had seen a man named Dave commit the crime. Before the end of the day, another witness confessed to seeing Dave do it. The police found the murder weapon in Dave's apartment. His were the only fingerprints on the gun. The court ordered him to be tested with the Naan. His memory showed he had done it. The court ordered James to talk to a psychiatrist. They found James felt he could have prevented the murder. He felt so guilty, that in his mind he believed he had done it. The court realized that memories are not always correct. In fact, most memories are pure fiction. The court dismissed the use of Naan.
A computer made of Naan, looked like a crystal ball. It was made of glass, round and sitting on a wooden base. It was filled with synthetic brain cells known as Naan. There was no keyboard or monitor. The test subject was chosen because he was a gamer. The experiment was to use Naan technology in a video game. The subjects name was Jim. Once he was injected and the correct time had passed, he was asked to sit in front of the crystal ball. He connected with it. His whole life was downloaded into the sphere. From the time he was born, first learning colors and shapes. How to walk and talk. The memory of being sent to the office for pulling a girl's hair in the first grade. Getting under the Christmas tree when he was five. Every memory from every day of his life was now in the Naan computer.
A scenario of World War Two was programed into the sphere. Jim sat motionless in the chair, a blank stare on his face. He found himself wearing a uniform and carrying a rifle in the jungle of Guadalcanal. He wasn't watching a television screen or holding a joystick, he was in the jungle. Japanese soldiers were shooting at him. He took cover and fired back.
In the room where his body sat, he was being monitored. His heart rate had gone up and he was sweating. A technician sitting at a keyboard made adjustments to calm him down. Jim did not move, he had no facial expression. It was as if he was in suspended animation.
In the game Jim believed he was fighting a war. The person in the jungle was him, it seemed real. The soldiers he shot were bleeding, screaming and dying. Jim could feel the heat of the sun and was wet from the humidity. If he wanted to change weapons all he had to do was think of them and they magically appeared in his hands. He found the entrance to a tunnel, he switched to a flamethrower and fired it. Across the jungle soldiers poured out of the ground on fire. Their screams made him feel sick. As he crossed the jungle, he came to a street with houses on it. As he moved down the street, he could see his house. His neighbor was out front pruning rose bushes. The neighbor had a gun and shot at him. Jim ran to his own house and went inside. His wife was cleaning the kitchen. He went down the hall, his daughter was playing in her room. As he looked in she said something in Japanese and shot him.
Back in the lab Jim's blank stare turned to a look of terror, he looked confused as if he didn't know where he was. His personal life had corrupted the scenario. The technician looking at the monitor concluded that the waveforms he was looking at must be P.T.S.D. the only way he could see to correct the problem would be to erase the memory of the game from Jim’s mind. As he sat up Jim asked “So when do we start?” He was told there were technical difficulties. He was handed a business card as he was shown to the door.
The next experiment was to see if information could be implanted using Naan. If learning could be downloaded, through telepathy from a computer. A young girl was chosen for the experiment, she was injected with Naan. A program was written containing algebra. After she made a connection to the computer, they started the download. Her mind was accepting the information, the speed was slower than the technician had expected. Then the download, stopped. The experiment wasn't working, more research was needed. The technician asked the girls parents if they could download her life, they wanted to go over every moment to see if they could find the problem. Her parents agreed, the girl went home. Going through the girl's mind the technicians found she did not understand addition. They were trying to build a house starting by putting shingles on the roof.
Without a good foundation and walls this was impossible. She had taken math in school, she should already know addition and multiplication. As they reviewed her life day by day, they found an evening where she was watching television. An ad for fast food said two plus two equals six. They displayed the math on the screen, the numbers were white with a flashing red background. The ad said get two hamburgers and two fries for six bucks. In school that day the teacher told her two plus two was four, she even wrote it on the chalkboard. When the girl saw the ad that evening, it confused her. She thought about it until her mind went into overload, and then shut down. She had put up a shield against mathematics, her education stopped there. To write a program for downloading education it would require erasing everything already learned. The new program would have to start from the beginning. If they erased everything, she would lose precious moments of her life. She would be a genius at math, spelling and science but have no life. The new program would need to make corrections along with adding new information. After testing the first hundred applicants, the technicians were amazed at how much wrong information people walk around with.
Naan technologies was originally privately funded, they applied for government funding. They had found practical applications. Naan computers were used in machine shops. They were attached to C.N.C. machines. The first test was with a machinist named George. He had gone to school to learn his trade, he had worked as a machinist for twenty years. The schooling and experience from his mind were downloaded. The computer now loaded with George was working. George the human man went to the beach, George the computer stayed at work. Naan made it so he could be at work and on vacation both at the same time, he was getting paid to lay in the sand and sip a beer. In other experiments the entire person was downloaded, the person's whole life. George is many people, he is a husband, a father, a fisherman, he had once been a child. The list could go on for days. The overlap of all these people creates consciousness. For a video game to work the consciousness needed to be in the game. It left the person's body sitting idle in a room. For George the machine shop only needed George the machinist. His mind was at work, his consciousness was at the beach.
A business opened offering time travel. For a small price they would download the information from your mind. You could replay moments from your life as if you were there again. In the original test an old man, named John was injected. After the Naan cells were attached and he had achieved telepathy he was placed in a room with a Naan computer. He sat in a comfortable chair. His mind and the computer connected telepathically. The memories from his past were downloaded into the computer. He wanted to relive a day fishing with his father. That day was in nineteen sixty-eight. His father passed away in nineteen seventy-four. A technician sitting behind a large glass window scrolled through his memory until he found the fishing trip in sixty-eight, he started the scenario. Sitting in the lab in his comfy chair John was almost asleep. In the computer John was eight years old and bouncing on his father's car seat. When they got to the lake, they went into a bait shop. John's dad bought two orange sodas, they were in glass bottles. They needed an opener to get into them. The technician looking at the controls could see meters, joy, happiness, and love were spiking. Sorrow, anger and hate were not registering at all. John sat on the pier next to his father, he could feel the warmth of the sun. He could taste the orange soda. From a portable radio sitting next to them he could hear Brenton Wood singing “Gimme Some Kinda Sign.” He could smell the warm creosote from the wood of the pier combined with fish guts and bait. John was aware that he was reliving a memory, even as the events of sixty-eight were playing out. The scenario seemed real, very real. It was impossible for him to change the past, he wasn't in the past, he was only in his mind. The father in the scenario wasn't the actual man. It was the father in his memory. All that information was stored in his memory. Naan technology could replay it. The time travel business was doing well.
In being able to control biology they found that growth is programed. It's in our genetics. We start out as infants. Our bodies constantly discard old cells and replace them with new. We don't stay infants our whole life. We are constantly making a new body, with growth hormones at the controls. Somewhere around the age of twenty we stop getting better and just get older. Wrinkles and gray hair are not us wearing out, we are programed to do that. Naan technology could stop that. For a small price you could stay twenty for hundreds of years. The new problem was overpopulation.
By the end of the twenty-first century people realized the matter we are made of is just rented dirt. That's not who we are. The energy that powers us is electricity. All that we are is information. Naan technologies had worked out the video game problems. People had become accustomed to playing. They had played them so much that reality had faded.
Naan Technologies had replaced transistors with synthetic nerve cells. We were using neurons, brain cells as computer chips. It had allowed people to access the computer with their mind. Naan had improved the medical field, education, industry and entertainment. It allowed us to stay young and time travel. People could work a job and enjoy leisure time at the same time. They could only connect to a computer if they were in a room with it. The telepathic power was limited to twenty feet. The telepathy frequency would only allow people to connect to the internet not each other. Connection between two people had been tested, it worked great. By the time there were five people all in one room, reading each other's thoughts the noise in their head would make them crazy. By rewriting the software it was possible to access the cell towers. Over time the cellular sites were replaced with Naan. The sites were long glass tubes filled with Naan.
The injected Naan now turned on a mobile phone in each person's head. The images in their mind improved. You could focus on your eyes and see the world or focus on the screen in your head. You could close your eyes and watch a streaming movie. It was in full HD, it was now better to watch in your head than on a big screen. If someone calls, you don't see printed words like a text, you don't hear words. You just know what they are thinking. The Naan communication carried more than thoughts, it carried emotion. If your boyfriend called, you might feel love. If your boss called, you might feel anger. What would take an hour to explain in words only took moments. The moments were more important, people could understand each other better. If someone in a group was sad, the others could feel it. Taking care of the group became more important than taking care of yourself. The group became yourself. People became unified in a way they never had before.
The software for video games had gotten better. The trees and grass were actually growing. Every bird and animal an individual. The program was so complex the programmer knew every feather on every bird. In the world of the game the sky was blue, the water clean and clear. The days and nights were equal. Every phase of the game was tested for glitches before the next phase was implemented. With the help of Naan technology it took the programmer six days to write the software. He took the next day off to go to his sister's wedding.
In the old video games people wanted excitement. There was a lot of killing and death. People had become more understanding now. They wanted life to be more pleasant, they wanted things to be simpler. The new game was a garden, a place to live a good life and be rewarded for it. Entering the game the person's life was downloaded, the information was theirs. Their character was a decision, they could choose the body they wanted. Some women chose to be men, some men chose to be woman. Some people wanted to be animals. The new game was going to be perfect. The scenario was beautiful, just what everyone wanted.
Back in the real world the earth was polluted, overpopulated and depressing. The technology had made life better, and worse. People had become confused, they had lost the sense of right and wrong. People had mastered matter, energy and information. They could now turn anything matter into anything. Alchemists from the past tried desperately to turn lead into gold. That was easy now. The new gold was Naan and most of the earth had been converted.
In the game the first person to play, or the first person who could afford to play. The complexity of this game made it expensive. Was a woman, she chose to be a man in the game. In the past the gamers sat in a chair while playing. The new game would take longer, that was something people had asked for. The waiting room now had glass lockers. The players left their body in a temperature controlled glass case. They were fed through an intravenous tube. Inside the game the first player woke up in a field of tall grass. He was naked, as he sat up a bird came down and landed on his finger. The feeling that came over him was wonderful. He had left a cold wet world. A rock floating in space all alone. He had lived in a city, everyone does, that's all that was left of the world. He was used to the sounds of police sirens and fire trucks. Neighbors banging trash cans and barking dogs. In the game the grass was soft, the sun warm and the only sounds were birds singing. The ground was soft with moss, as he walked to the creek for a drink. The water was cool and clean that drink was unlike any he had experienced before. This was her first moments of being a man and she liked it.
The new game was different from others in that it could be expanded as it was being played. Naan was being added. The need for Naan caused people to explore space. A new company was started. They collected asteroids and sold them. Tons of asteroids only made ounces of Naan. The space ships had large containers. They looked like outer space dump trucks, with long robotic arms to collect space junk. The business was doing well, they were adding new ships every few months. They used the moon as a storage facility. The tank containing the game was large. The gelatinous mass of Naan could be seen from space.