Nature Futures 2

by Colin Sullivan

  Eva was intrigued. “How can you parse that information from the signal without physically reconstructing the whole person? That technology doesn’t exist.”

  “It doesn’t exist in the space controlled by the System Government. But the System is decadent. The desire to advance technology is gone, and anything startlingly new is seen as a threat to the status quo. You should know.”

  She scowled.

  “We’ve been following your work for some time. We were very excited at the prospect of having you on our team.”

  “So what now?”

  “Join us as we develop the technology to destroy the System Government and bring human civilization to the next phase of its development. Or be destroyed as an illegal copy.”

  “What choice do I have? I’m with you,” she said, although her mind was already working on alternative arrangements.

  “Excellent. Each of your copies will get a free back-up every six months, and — wait.” The faces looked concerned. “Unfortunately, your neurological monitors are showing intense animosity. We’ll have to try again with an approach better suited to building your confidence.”

  “No, wait! You can’t —”

  They smiled, and a hand patted hers. “It doesn’t hurt. You’ll be put under anaesthesia and then you’ll just wake up again. It happens a few times to everyone until we learn how best to tailor our introduction to the new recruit.” She tried to jerk away.

  * * *

  “Bastards!” she whispered, and opened her eyes.

  Peter J. Enyeart is postdoctoral researcher studying metabolic engineering at MIT. He also enjoys sleeping and patent translation.

  A Perfect Drug

  Dan Erlanson

  Jeffrey rose slowly, scanned the half-dozen people in the darkly panelled boardroom, and sonorously announced: “You all know the good news. It’s the bad news I’ve gathered you to hear.”

  Alan carefully maintained a neutral composure, but quietly he seethed. It was bad enough for the head of commercialization to call an emergency executive meeting without informing him, the chief executive, what it was about. Now Jeffrey was going to theatrically draw out whatever he was planning to say — and there was nothing Alan could do. Jeffrey had powerful supporters on the board; after all, he had certainly delivered for the company.

  “As you know, the launch of Paxpharma has been one of the most successful product rollouts in the history of our industry,” Jeffrey continued. “In the crowded field of antidepressants, our drug stands out with the lowest side-effect profile on the market. Uptake has been phenomenal, and we’ve gone from a struggling mid-tier pharmaceutical company with a looming patent cliff to the darling of Wall Street.

  “As you also know, Paxpharma almost didn’t launch. The molecule is a nightmare to synthesize, and the size of the phase III trials necessitated a complete reworking of the manufacturing process. Even with the new synthetic route in place, we barely scraped together enough material for the trials.”

  Alan remembered that period painfully well. The company was being pounded by analysts and investors for its thin pipeline. A new antidepressant wasn’t an obvious home-run, but the phase II data were compelling, and they didn’t have much else. Manufacturing spent months validating the new production procedure, and when everything was worked out and signed off with the FDA, the factory went into 24/7 production mode. It was expensive, but it paid off: the phase III trials revealed Paxpharma to be just as effective as existing antidepressants, but with a faster onset of action and milder side-effect profile. In particular, there was no evidence of weight gain or sexual dysfunction, two problems that focus groups had shown to be particularly unpopular with competitor drugs.

  The company launched an aggressive and edgy advertising campaign touting Paxpharma. It worked. One of the ads went viral on YouTube, and the drug got the kind of attention from talk-show hosts and celebrities that can only come about through deserved but dumb luck. There were concerns that demand would outstrip supply, but somehow production increased, and profits soared. Stock analysts who had been calling for changes in leadership suddenly became fawning. Alan couldn’t help smiling, remembering his change in fortune.

  His reverie was broken by Jeffrey, who was still pontificating. “As I said at the outset, the good news is that the trials were positive. Paxpharma was approved and is now a major commercial success. Now the bad news.

  “When the drug was approved, we were at a loss as to how we could scale up production even further. We struggled to make enough material for the pivotal trials, let alone for a launch. And, of course, any significant change in manufacturing procedure would have to be approved by the FDA. We realized we couldn’t do it in time.”

  There was silence in the room as people tried to digest what they had just heard. Alan finally blurted: “But you did. Right?”

  “No,” said Jeffrey. “We tried, but we couldn’t do it.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Alan, his voice rising tremulously. “We’ve been selling product for the past 18 months!”

  “Yes, we’ve been selling product,” Jeffrey repeated slowly. “But we haven’t been selling a drug. We’ve been selling sugar pills for the past six quarters.”

  Alan felt his stomach hit the floor. Time seemed to stop. “But … it works,” he finally managed, weakly.

  Jeffrey shrugged. “Yes, we were happily surprised by that too. The placebo effect is strong with psychoactive drugs. I guess we never realized how strong.”

  “That’s the bad news,” Jeffrey continued. “A small team of us have kept this secret until now, and we could probably continue to do so indefinitely, but some new developments require decisions.

  “The production difficulties with Paxpharma are well-known, and we’ve been diligently adding capacity. The new plants are now online, and we believe we can now supply enough active pharmaceutical ingredient to meet demand. The question is, should we?”

  Alan shouted: “Of course! Right away — why wouldn’t you?”

  Jeffrey looked at Alan condescendingly, then gazed slowly around the room. “Think about it. We’ve been selling a product with no side effects, and people are clearly benefiting: just read the patient testimonials posted everywhere online. Look at the sales figures.

  “If we switch to selling the actual drug molecule, we’ll be putting patients at risk. Sure, the side-effect profile is lower than other drugs out there, but there are side effects with any drug. Worse, these will be especially noticeable to the people who are most benefiting from our product — the patients who have been taking it for months without any problems.

  “We will of course continue to manufacture the genuine article as a smokescreen for regulators, but, in the interest of our customers and our shareholders, I recommend continuing to sell placebo.” Jeffrey paused before adding, “Of course, the decision is not mine to make.”

  Alan could feel a dozen eyes on him. The seconds ticked into minutes, and by the time he finally replied, his voice was barely audible.

  Dan Erlanson is a chemist trying to discover non-placebo-based drugs in San Francisco, California. He blogs about a tiny niche of drug discovery at http://practicalfragments.blogspot.com.

  Words and music

  Ronald D. Ferguson

  Yeah, you got me, fair and square. I didn’t think you’d recognize me. I am the government translator, the guy who lurks off the shoulder of Space Systems’ chief negotiator and whispers connotations, corrections and culpability in case the computer renders too literal a verdict on Utmano phrasing. I’ve got nothing to do with speakos. Talk with the programmers for input–output problems.

  I hope you’re recording this, because it will be my only interview. Please, just a few questions, so quit yelling. I’ll tell the story, and then I go home. Understood?

  Here’s what happened. The meeting began with the formal greeting …

  Example? You want to know what the Utmano said? Do you speak Utmano? Oh, the literal translation into En
glish? Right. Let me see …

  It is beautiful weather we shall be having tomorrow wasn’t it?

  That’s not the literal translation of the Utmano greeting, but that’s as close as I’m likely to get on a Tuesday. Today is Wednesday? No, I can’t do better today. Of course, the literal translation isn’t what the Utmano meant. From the variations of pitch within the context of the meeting, my best interpretation is:

  We should complete negotiations successfully tomorrow based on the current tolerant atmosphere and previously adopted ground rules.

  The computer’s translation was close, possibly better based on pitch and less accurate where context was important. Diphthong? No pitch, like I said. Intonation would be a reasonable description. Thai is the human intonation language that comes to mind, but Utmano is like intonation on steroids. Spoken Utmano must be sung.

  No, I don’t think an Utmano looks like a whale. That’s uncalled for.

  Speak Utmano? Unaided, I cannot speak Utmano. My base vocabulary is okay, and I might squeeze out a few words, but the Utmano tonal range is 14 octaves. They have some vocabulary modifiers well above 20,000 hertz, which is likely to make your neighbour’s dog bark. Humans have a more limited range. I use a synthesizer to …

  Human range? Oh, I don’t know. If you watch old videos, Julie Andrews had a four-octave range, Mariah Carey perhaps five, but most people can’t do that. I certainly can’t. I’m good at listening to the symphony that Utmano call speech. I’m not Mozart, but I have a good ear, and training as a professional musician.

  No, Julie Andrews. You know, The Sound of Music. Okay?

  Symphony? Each Utmano has a double set of vocal chords and can sound two notes at once. An Utmano can sing harmony with itself. The Utmano divide an octave into 32 parts. That’s why we rely on computers and Fourier analysis …

  No. I understand your question, but Utmano translation doesn’t compare well to translations among human languages. The Utmano language has a peculiar view of tense, you know, past, present, future, in its sentences — well maybe not sentences, but the complete-thought communication structure. Psychologists claim that the Utmano have a lingering, vivid, recent memory combined with a mild prescience that blends with their perception of the ‘now’. It sounds like gobbledegook, but they claim that the Utmano idea of the present spans from the middle of last week to a couple of hours from now.

  In translating from English to Greek, or French, or whatever Earth language you pick, we have the advantage of common human experiences. Humans share uncommonly little with the Utmano.

  No. I’m not making excuses. I accept the blame for missing any subtle nuance, but the Utmano response was undocumented. Google the literature, and the only violent reactions are for personal insults …

  I’ll stick to the topic. I repeat for the record. Intonation is not a critical characteristic of most human languages, but to the Utmano, a change in pitch is an essential communication detail.

  Look, I’ve got to go. I need to finish this interview. I can’t give any details of the ongoing negotiations, because those are secret. I can confirm the official report. Yes, I know the report is short. Do you have a copy? Okay, I’ll read it for those in the back.

  “Chief Negotiator Simon Mann died today when he bade farewell to the Utmano Ambassador. A focused eruption of sonic energy homogenized Dr Mann’s brain. With no hope for recovery, his family directed he be removed from life support.”

  You heard that the sonic energy was a blast of rage from the Utmano Ambassador? No. I cannot confirm that. Yes, I was there, but appearances aren’t always reality.

  Yes, I was told that Dr Mann practised a few phrases in Utmano. No, I didn’t coach him. I was never asked to coach him. Besides, I use the very tedious process of keyboarded voice modulation when I speak Utmano. Dr Mann wasn’t a musician, and I wouldn’t know how to coach him. I certainly didn’t know that Dr Mann planned to speak in Utmano or I would have advised against it.

  What? John Kennedy at the Berlin Wall, the ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech? Yeah, I’ve seen the newsreel. No, I don’t think Kennedy said ‘I’m a jelly doughnut.’ No, I don’t know whether Dr Mann planned to run for elected office.

  Negotiations? Negotiations will resume in two weeks, once we are well past the Utmano concept of the present. No, I don’t believe that is ‘pout time’ or ‘holding a grudge’.

  One last question? Okay, you, in the back. Did Dr Mann make a mistake? All I’ve got is my humble opinion, not as a translator, but as a musician.

  Like many tone-deaf amateurs, he thought he could sing.

  Ronald D. Ferguson has decided that writing fiction is more fun than writing college textbooks. He lives with his wife and five feral cats on two acres of the Texas Hill Country.

  Recursion1

  Simon Quellen Field

  The little man opened the door and stepped into Schmidt’s office.

  “Who let you in here?” asked the surprised Schmidt.

  “I just did,” the little man said, pointing to the door.

  “But that’s my bathroom,” Schmidt said, rising from his chair.

  “No matter,” said the little man. “In a moment, you won’t care. Because I am about to give you the most amazing thing you have ever seen in your life.”

  He held out his hand, on which there sat a small blue sphere that seemed to shimmer. Schmidt was about to protest when the little man touched the sphere and pulled on it. It grew as it followed his gesture, until it was a large globe, the continents and oceans easily recognizable, clouds moving slowly across the surface. Schmidt stopped and stared. It was so lifelike. He could see three-dimensional details in the landscape, even birds and aeroplanes as the view got closer.

  “We call this the Simulation,” the little man said. “It’s quite realistic. It uses inputs from satellites, of course, but also from all kinds of cameras all over the world, cell phones, traffic cameras, webcams, television. It’s quite up-to-date. You can zoom in on anything you like.”

  He gestured again, and Schmidt felt a dizzy sensation as the view swooped down through clouds to view a city, and then farther down to view a street corner with busy traffic and pedestrians, all moving and in perfect 3D. He could move his head and see behind people and objects. He felt he could reach in and touch things.

  “How do —?” Schmidt began.

  “It’s a simulation,” the little man said. “There’s data input, but most of it is generated. Computers, you know.”

  The view changed as the little man made subtle movements with his hands. Schmidt seemed to fly through walls, observing people in their homes and at work, going about their routines. A woman brushing her teeth in front of a mirror. A couple arguing at a table in a café. A seductive woman trolling a bar in Paris. A fisherman struggling with a line in Australia.

  “It’s extremely popular where I come from,” said the little man. “People fly all around, spy on people, hang around women’s locker rooms, it’s highly addictive. Hardly anything else gets done. People stop talking to each other, stop going to work, they’re just fascinated.”

  Schmidt himself was getting fascinated. It looked so real. He reached his hand out and the sphere responded, moving the scenes around as he gestured. He felt like he was flying, swooping between buildings and under bridges, peering into windows, moving through solid walls like a ghost. He peeked into corporate boardrooms and spied on meetings in the Kremlin.

  “But that’s not all,” the little man said. “You can go in.” He zoomed in on a doorway, until the door was life-sized in front of them. “Any door you like, you just open it and walk in.”

  He reached for the doorknob, and turned it, pushing the door open. Schmidt looked in, and saw himself in a room that looked just like his office, standing next to a little man with a doorknob in his hand. He swung around and looked at the door to his bathroom, which was now open, and he could see himself looking back.

  “How —?” he started to ask.

&nbs
p; “Cute trick, eh?” the little man said, closing the door. “You can forget your corporate jet. Anywhere you want to go, you just open the door. That’s how I got here, of course.”

  “That can’t be real,” Schmidt said, shaking his head.

  “No, it isn’t,” the little man replied. “Like I said, it’s a simulation. All done by computers. Collecting and organizing all the world’s information, and presenting it in a nice three-dimensional user interface, with natural intuitive gestural inputs. Anyone can learn to use it in seconds, it needs no user manual.”

  “And you’re giving this to me?” Schmidt asked, his gaze still held by the device, his hands still moving to direct the view.

  “Free of charge,” the little man said. “No catch, it’s all yours.”

  “I can see why people get addicted to this,” Schmidt said.

  “Yes, that was a problem. Economy went into the crapper, people stopped having kids, food became scarce, things were really going downhill until we came up with this solution.”

  “What solution was that?” Schmidt asked absently, his attention still riveted on the device in his hands.

  “A computer virus,” the little man said. “Ingenious, really. It’s called infinite recursion. Like putting two mirrors facing each other, so you get a hallway stretching on forever. We put a Simulator inside the Simulator, and the computers spend all their time simulating more simulations, until they don’t have any time to do anything else. Everything grinds to a halt after a little while. The toy isn’t fun anymore, and people get back to their lives.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Schmidt said.

  “Give it a minute or two,” the little man said. He gestured, and the view zoomed in on Schmidt’s office, showing the two men gazing at the sphere. Inside the sphere, two copies of the men were staring at another sphere. “It will come to you,” he said. “Or maybe not.”