by Jose Moreno
****
The vehicle began to accelerate. In three minutes they were moving at 320 miles per hour. After thirty two minutes, Barón looked at a beautiful oval island which seemed to be 30 miles long by 20 miles wide. By circling the island, they were able to slow down their speed. Then, they landed on the center of a 100 yard by 100 yard metal platform.
When the vehicle’s door opened, six men wearing white ropes like monks surrounded the vehicle chanting in Latin.
“What is this?” Barón asked
“They are chanting for you. They are glad you came to our island” The man responded with a smile.
When both came out of the vehicle, the doors closed automatically behind them automatically and the man said to Barón, “Let’s go to our temple.”
Barón, puzzled, thought, “What is this man talking about?”
Then, all the people that were at the platform began to walk along a white sandy path three yards from the edge of the platform. They walked in a narrow path that was surrounded densely by tropical vegetation; it made walking occasionally difficult. There were many palm trees. Also, there were many exotic plants where spiders were waiting for a prey on their webs. Mosquitoes were flying around everyone’s ears. Some lizards that were being camouflaged by the green plants near the path moved away from the path when Barón, the man in the suit, and other man in white ropes were passing. On the top of the trees, there was a wide variety colorful birds that Barón had not seen before. For Barón, it was a delightful scene.
After walking for eight minutes, they were reaching the end of the path. In front of them, there was a semi-spherical white structure, 20 feet in diameter, which had a silver, squared, metallic door connected to the path. When they all got closer, the door lifted up. They all walked inside into a silvery metal compartment big enough to fit all of them at once. Once they were inside, the door slid down and the compartment began to move downwards.
Barón was startled by the movement of the compartment and said, “Why are we moving?”
“Relax. We are going one thousand feet below ground level first. Then, we are going to move towards the center of the island,” The man in the suit said.
After descending for twenty three seconds, the compartment stop for a few seconds; then, the compartment accelerated horizontally for twelve seconds. After that, the compartment was moving at constant speed, making Barón think for a second that they were static. The compartment began to slow down after eleven minutes.
The man in the suit said, “We are almost there. Hopefully, you will convert.”
Not knowing what the man had implied by “convert,” Barón thought, “Why can he speak clearly!” Barón did not understand that that there was something deep in his choice of words; he was going to find out when he arrived at the majestic destination. Barón would discover the power of words.
Once it stopped, the door opened, they all walked out of the compartment; Barón was amazed to see that they were in a place that looked like an old fashion church with exaggerated baroque architecture. On the walls, there were golden ornaments which had no specific form. The walls themselves were built with blocks made out of stone. There were four pillars in each of the corners of the 900 square yards floor of that room in the shape of a square. The walls were decorated also with artistic paintings of technological devices which Barón did not recognize. All over the ceiling, there was an ambiguous painting of angels. Around the structure, there were other six men wearing white ropes, chanting in Latin, and creating wonderful reverberating sounds.
In the middle of the room, there was another man—He looked like ninety years of age—with white ropes, standing up, lifting the palms of his hands up, which made Barón remember the way his grandfather used to pray; then, he said, “Hello Barón. My name is Paul. Welcome to our secret agency.”
Barón, not knowing what to think, responded, “Hello…” Barón did not think that he was in a technology agency that looked for functio-vandals; he thought, “I am in a church.” Then, Barón shook his head and felt the he deserved a clear explanation for what was going on instead of just playing along. He said, “Wait a minute! What is all these?” Barón was frowning, looking around, and scorning everything. Barón dared to say, “Is this a shenanigan?”
Paul put his hands down and the chanting stopped. Then, he said, “I understand that you think that you are confused, but inside you know what is happening”
Barón was not buying what he was saying. Thus, he said with a defiant tone, “Well…I do not see what is going on.”
Paul added, “Barón, you are here because I allowed it. I am the highest authority in the agency.”
Barón chuckled and said, “I am here to do a job so that I can be free from Jail time.”
Paul said, “You are here because it is your calling”
“What calling?”
“You have the calling, like all of us in this island, to be the prophets of the consciousness of the universe as a whole.”
Thinking that they were all deranged, Barón responded, “What are you talking about?”
Paul smiled and walked towards a small wooden door behind him. Once he was standing next to the door, he turned around and said, “Barón, come with me”
Barón walked forward towards the door eager to find the meaning behind the words being said by Paul; Barón did not understand yet that his desire to find out was the beginning of his spiritual calling. Then, with Paul, he entered the door and Paul closed it right behind. They were both in a little nine square yard, wooden room lit by candles; In front of them, there were two stairways. One stairway led upwards and the other led downwards.
Paul said, “We are going downwards towards the cave.”
Barón was dying of curiosity to know the surprise that he was going to discover. He knew they were capable of creating extraordinary devices. He had been the witness of their power at the woods.
Before Barón took the first step, Paul said, “You are going to see things that you will find divine. You will have a revelation. Are you ready?”
“Yes, I am ready”
Then, they both began to walk down the stairway. It was difficult to see what was at the end of the stairway given the poor illumination. It was a long stairway which took them 2 minutes to walk all the way. At the end of the stairway, there was another wooden door.
Once Paul and Barón were at the bottom, before Paul opened the door, he said to Barón, “We are one thousand feet below ground level. This is what we have here…” he opened the door for Barón and bright luminous white light hit his eyes; it felt like looking at a powerful lamp.
Barón walked inside. He struggled to conceptualize what he was observing; he was squinting due to the great halo of white luminosity that filled the place. They were inside a cave which was seventy hundred feet in height but extended for Miles in every direction. In the cave, there was an enormous device that was 150 feet in height and width, but was one mile long—it was unheard in the year 2054 of an enormous device with those proportions. There were no aesthetic decorations on the device. Also, it had many small doors that were opened. Around the device there were thousands of man and woman working. There were metallic structures around the device that helped all those workers go up and down the device. They were all wearing white TRSs and black glasses. All of the people working on the herculean device seemed to be repairing and putting parts on. Because everything was so bright, Barón pulled the hood from his TRS, put it on his head, and pulled down the dark glasses from the edge of the hood in order to be able to see more clearly what was going on. Barón’s mouth was slightly opened. He analyzed everything for several seconds. Then, far away, about one mile from where he was standing with Paul, he saw hundreds of white luminous spheres moving erratically. Barón was speechless.
Paul then said to Barón with great excitement, “We plan to take this vehicle, our holy temple, to heaven,” pointing up with his finger.
Amazed, Barón asked
, “That big device flies?”
“Yes.”
“What on earth is that?”
Paul gave Barón a tender look and remained silent for a few seconds thinking about the way he was going to articulate the colossal device that Barón was witnessing. Then, Paul said, “That device is the mind and body of our organization. It controls the flying vehicles that you observed at the woods and all functiomatons in the world. We like to call it, The Super-Functiomaton.”
Then, with anxiety, Barón recalled many scary moments at the woods after he switched his attention from the big device to the white luminous spheres flying around. He asked, “What are those white luminous spheres doing here?”
Paul chuckled while noticing Barón’s fear of those vehicles. Then, with a tone of tenderness, he said, “Do not worry. Those spheres are the angels of the super-functiomaton!”
Barón pursed his lips no agreeing with that metaphor.
Paul added, “I know Barón that my metaphors are unusual, but those metaphors show how much I love what I do. On the other hand, I also speak physics and mathematics whenever I deal with technical issues.”
Ironically, Barón was glad to hear “physics” in Paul speech; Nevertheless, Barón found interesting how Paul used poetic devices to refer to technology [22]. This way of speaking greatly contrasted with Barón’s view of poetry that had resulted from learning physics from Mr. Einstein. In Barón’s view, “Paul was a poet of technology.”
Barón asked, “Did your agency built this device?” expecting more of Paul’s poetry.
“No, we did not build it. The consciousness of the entire universe built it. We are merely instruments of the mind of the universe. The universe originated this magnificent vehicle that we also call The Ark. Do you understand what I am saying?”
Suddenly, all the theological language that Paul had been using was beginning to make sense. Barón thought, “Technology is a divine instrument for the pursuit of a higher divine condition. Even humans are instruments of that pursuit,” trying to play Paul’s language game. Then, watching The Ark, Barón felt like he was having a “divine revelation,” thinking that “functiomatons kill the human spirit but not the spirit of technology”. In this way, he reached the conclusion that he should not pursue the “human spirit” but “the spirit of technology”.
It was a monumental change of mind for Barón. It felt right. A voice inside of him, like the one that he felt during that dinner with his father, before he made the decision to leave for the woods, told him “higher technology is the instrument of that higher pursuit.” However, this time, that voice meant something. He knew that voice was his own material self calling him to write poetry about the material universe. Paul was going to be his teacher. From now on, he was going to speak the poetry of Paul. That poetry was going to be his own view of life because prison had allowed him to see how distasteful the poetry of humanity was.
Noticing that Barón was meditating deeply about what had been revealed to him, Paul asked him, “Can you see our project as your calling?”
Barón realized that he had a techno-conversion [23]. He no longer detested the functiomatons of his life. It was time to build a great project where humans were just a passing away. Not every human was a chosen one; nevertheless, it was time to let other humans be, even if they were enchanted by lower functiomatons, like the teen-agers around his neighborhood, or if they could not make sense out of functiomatons at all, like the inmates from South Prison #12. Also, he had to let himself be. He felt the calling to be part of something higher. He realized that he had never belonged in the woods; He belonged in the material universe. He finally became aware that he was now purified from his techno-sins.
In this way, Barón said with excitement and a wide smile, “I see this project as my calling!”
“I knew all along that this was your calling even when you were at the woods.”
With a suspicious feeling, Barón asked, “How do you know what happened at the woods?”
“Our satellites can pick up any sound on earth!”
“Did you hear everything that we were talking about at the woods?”
“Yes. We can hear everything.” Then, trying to be funny, Paul said to Barón with fake excitement, “Just make sure you keep it a secret!” making Barón chuckle.
Looking at the top of The Ark, Paul said, “Speaking of the woods…” Then, from the top of The Ark, a white flying vehicle, like the one that took Barón to the island, began to descend on the metal platform where Barón and Paul were joyfully standing. Once on the platform, Paul said, “We have a surprise for you,” and the door of the vehicle opened. Carl, Mary, and Martin came out of the vehicle. They all ran to hug each other and they all began to cry.
“I missed you guys!” Barón said while he was trying to hug all three of them simultaneously.
Then, they all made a circle and grabbed the hand of the person on the left and the right while they were facing each other in tears.
Martin said, “On behalf of the other two members of the Proud Zeros, we love you man!”
Carl added, “Barón, we converted. Now, we are not blind, right?”
Barón smiled and said, “We can see more clearly now.”
John approached the group and said, “Do you call yourselves Proud Zeros? I call you the ones without original sin because you do not see your bodies as instruments of pleasure. That is why you were able to hear the call.” Then, Paul looked at the perky faces of the teen-agers, cleared his throat, and paused deliberately to indicate them that he was going to say something important. Paul looked at his old fashion clock on his wrist and he added, “Speaking of sins! It is time to praise The Ark.” Paul lifted his hands up and said loudly, “Everyone! Let’s praise! We have new comers!” Immediately, the thousands of humans working around The Ark in that giant cave stopped working and got on their knees. Observing that no one was standing up, Carl, Mary, and Barón kneeled down to conform. Then, Paul said in a loud voice,
“Oh universe, thank you for bringing more humans
in order to build great projects with the laws of physics.
Reveal your secrets,
Do not let us be vain in our humanness.”
Then, Paul said, “Let-that-praise-be!”
Everyone repeated, in magnificent unison, “Let-that-praise-be!”
Then, everyone stood up and returned to the activity they were doing before the praise.
Paul said to the teen-agers, “Well, you all will have to start tomorrow. Today, we are going to have a little party for you all”
As they were all walking towards the door, Paul said to Barón, “Please, honor your father. He always wanted the best from you.”
Barón responded, “Yes. I will honor his simple wisdom. He knew all along what was best for me.”