Memory stick part 3

Here is part three - you might want to read parts one and two first...

With one day to go we entered the chamber with the goal of coming up with an action plan. We made paper copies of the control panel and lists of translated word that might be useful. Vernon explained what he expected when the ON button was pressed and we rehearsed a hundred potential sequences. The day dragged on in this manner. We even started to speculate what this language sounded like.

I didn’t sleep well that evening. Restless hours tossing, turning, staring at the stars, swatting at insects….. I recall seeing first light and then, just after dawn, Vernon woke me. I was in no shape for this. He sensed my condition and prescribed some concoction of herbs.

I picked at breakfast but the herbal tea seemed to work. Although there were ten people sitting around our section of the camp no one spoke. And even though only Vernon and I knew what was going on our fellows seemed to be infected by this anticipation. The gravity of the day was palpable.

Vernons special compass, which he now carried constantly, chimed. The gears and cogs whirred. He consulted the dials. “I was afraid of this, time to move boy. Our six ours have been reduced to two.” The event had been rescheduled.

I made to pick up a pile of supplies for the day. “No need for those, just bring a water bag and fresh bucket”. I quickly grabbed the items that some unseen steward had left during the night and chased after him as he headed toward the cave entrance. ‘Once more into the wizards’ arena’ I thought as we descended in the moving room.

The lighting in the room had changed, gone was the familiar, almost cozy, warm aspect. The whole room was illuminated as brightly as if by sun light; the whole ceiling glowing bright white. I could also hear a low rumble.

“No time to waste, quickly lay out our parchments”

I fumbled and knocked over Vernons ‘instant table’. He did not comment but just started picking up the papers. His compass chimed, the cogs whirred “30 minutes boy, no time for niceties” The hum in the room changed note. The some of the buttons on the control panel illuminated. “Now boy, hit the ON button”. As my finger made contact the blank square in the panel filled with the strange text. I started translating. “Vernon, It, it is listing options…. Upload…. Delete…. Start new… Refresh”

Vernon approached and looked over my shoulder. “Hmm.. I suspect given there is nothing in the arena that we should upload”. He pressed the corresponding button A new list of options appeared. He elbowed me aside – but not in a rude or pushy way.

A list of names and dates. “Vernon this is sporting fixtures – I recognise the team names from the ruins”.

“Yes I see that.” He randomly selected one of the options. The arena in front of us filled with some crazy geometric pattern that resolved into what I am guessing was the ruins above, but in their glory days. A full model. I looked closer and could see people in the stands and on the playing surface. On the display the options were replaced by symbols – arrows, squares, a definite three axis that I remembered from geometry books, and others. It was my turn. I felt some connection with these markings. I pressed the axis button and a pair of clock wise and anti-clockwise symbols appeared. I pressed one. The whole model in the arena rotated. I then pressed others. I found I could zoom in to an area, spin it around on any plane, and make the people in the model move faster, slower or backward. I could even hear the words said by individuals when I made them come close.

Vernon grumbled “This is no good, it is just some record of the ancient past. I have read of such devices but could not fathom how they would look”. The time dial on his compass was reading 5 minutes. For the first time I saw Vernon looking forlorn.

I looked at the panel for some time. I had no option, this was now my show. I pressed the button with the symbol for option upon it. The model in the arena dissolved back into the crazy collection of lines and geometric shapes and then back into the grey grid mesh of its floor. Scanning the list of options that appeared one stood out – Refresh. I pressed it. Verons compass chimed zero seconds.

I can’t really describe the next few moments.

Everything changed. I was lying in some sort of sterile environment. A room. There were other people engaged in unfathomable tasks. One was working a panel, not dissimilar to the one I had been at moments before. A woman approached, she spoke in some foreign tongue. She then spoke to they man at the panel who nodded and proceeded to finger the display.

She spoke once more “Hello Zara, your sim broke down. Please relax it is perfectly normal to experience a lot of disorientation. Don’t try to speak just yet….” She looked down at some device. “It appears you found a glitch with one of the AI characters. That should of alarmed months ago”. I tried to speak but only some unrecognisable garbage came out.

My mind whirled. I was confused. I could remember things that were beyond my experience. I knew this facility. I think I knew the man at the console – his name was…Arthur, eys Arthur. It was a cute name he had adopted after his ….his out time?

I could remember my youth playing with the other boys I my fathers court, training with Vernon and….and my middle aged husband? I had lived two lives. No more, many more. I recalled living in space with aliens, a Neanderthal tribe, swimming the oceans as a whale and a dozen more. I finally recalled the real me; a 400 year old woman who lived on an earth where death was optional. Where you can only spend one tenth of your life living, the rest of the time you are condemned to a live a fantasy – of your own design.

I had booked in for another full life experience, my favourite. 100 years of sim, my husband was booked in for the same stretch. We had planned to save up a full ten years of life and loan another eight together to produce our first child. Now he lay somewhere in this facility with a couple of million other nominally dead minimally alive people while I wasted my up time.

I began to cry. The woman approached me. “it’s ok. We can restart, When you get back to the sim you wont even be aware that this has happened. It will be something to chuckle about when you come out to live. You don’t even need to prep – your already wired and plumbed’

She carefully re-arranged some tubes and leads. I felt a wave of cold over my body.

Vernons look of depression was replaced with elation. “My boy this is it. Look the arena is filled with book files. The ultimate artefact. The ultimate machine. It does contain all knowledge – well at least the useful things. We can analyse it, we can ponder its workings. This will finally allow our civilisation to break away from the curse, this crutch of magic to solve our problems”. I was only relieved that pressing the refresh button didn’t destroy the machine.

Vernon stayed at the cave site while I returned home to take up his post. Even though I was young Vernon greased the path, so to speak, appearing in the court and even to the masses.

Now, at the end of my life, I feel that it was a life well lived. I look back on all that I have achieved and the transformation of my society. Our life is free from wizards and kings. We live in enlightened times where all knowledge is shared and all can contribute. I am pleased. My natural death will conclude it well.

So that is the story where the technological singularity was reached and humanity uses a simple method to overcome environmental problems. The next one will be shorter – I promise.