Lab #2 - George

{Yes, I accept all brickbats (and I have already accepted several in the form of the two submissions for the lab). Thought I'd provide a nice silver nail for the coffin:) Postmodern references (as if there weren't enough already) available on request}

"Don't you dare call me Ishmael!" And Aichi proceeded to provide a competent phonetic equivalent of his name to the bewildered customer service representative at the other end of the cell-while. The flatline drone of redundant information on the traffic channel was suddenly interrupted by yet another calmercial:

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

The dehumidifying kruegers had won this time. A brief smudged flash of the long line of SRVs going nowhere on the intertown. The rain did this here. Drove people's brains to seed. Social historians and people who subscribed to the Methuselah Manifest were now getting bolder about finding all this atavistic drive to disaster that humanity had embarked upon. Yet again. It had happened after every revision of the Public Transit Bill. The concerns of the leftist factions who supported the cause of mass transit were laid to rest using what many historians in the know referred to as offering "epistemological problems of sufficient magnitude". The Howard Family had only managed to achieve a fractional improvement over the work of the previous generation and had announced a renunciation last week. The allocated funds would soon be up for grabs through the tax-exempt growleries and their weekly trivia contests...

Aichi Je's voice broke into the void of Walker's thoughts. "Can you connect me to room six one one?"

The scraggly treescape didn't offer much of an alternative to the vista of the chocked arteries on the expressway. Walker had hoped that someone in the administration would appreciate the irony of the term and find an acceptable replacement. But then, it would be too much to expect irony in the administrative circles. All these years had not afforded a government job any more value and meaning.

"You're taking a chance by not wearing a cap, especially at a time like this." That was Aichi Je again. Referring to Walker's overdue haircut and the consequences it might have if they were flagged by a heli-cop and presented with a citation for being decalvant delinquents. Walker didn't even want to explore the irony of that phrase. He just gave Aichi a blank look peppered with the hint of a smirk. They had more pressing problems at hand.

Aichi was trying to get in touch with a feelings facilitator for some "vision reconciliation." Something about a recurring dream he was having –- some dark figure standing by his bed blowing smoke and quotes from Derrida at him. Walker wondered if the lady two lanes away would consider that a nightmare.

A short high-pitched squeal on the radio hinted that the Stochastic Signal System was about to proceed to its next iteration. This might be their chance. A short window of time and space opened up and they managed to get to their exit with just about a second to spare.

The clarity was devastating and the ambiguity had fled the box.

Lab #2 : Sudarshan

[This story has been in draft state for more than 2 weeks - first on my computer, then on blogger. Sick and tired of even thinking about it. I know exactly how JR felt before posting his entry now! :). Therefore, guys, forgive cheapness in style. The Asimov-ish punchline, though, is fully intentional, and targeted squarely at George for his lab idea.]


The cheapskates always tried to cram the chip with all sorts of business information – strangely enough, they were the ones with the most money and they bought the highest-capacity chips, but they were invariably the ones who found the space insufficient. They’d think that the intricacies of running their business was something that needed to be explained down to the most mundane detail. The creative types, on the other hand, usually just wanted to pass on memories of a few of their best moments, and were quite content to edit down their memories to fit the smaller chip their limited finances could afford.
Daddy was arguably somewhere in between these two extremes. You don’t become an art dealer unless you have a head for art in the first place, and you don’t become the best-known art dealer in the solar system without possessing some business acumen. Unfortunately, his son George didn’t have the same mixture of talent, which was why I was in his life, calling him Daddy and helping out in his business, instead of still being in an orphanage.
I watched him now with a mixture of curiosity and concern. When he’d called me here to this hotel room, I’d assumed it was because he was on Io for a short time and wanted to check up on the business on this branch. I was meeting him in the flesh after nearly a year, and I’d been shocked by the fine wrinkles that had appeared around his eyes. They didn’t show up in the vidphone image. Daddy noticed the expression on my face and curtly dropped his bombshell.
“The Plastic-drug course didn’t slow down the tumour as much as expected. It’s a matter of a few weeks more – then the tumour will start affecting my brain tissues.
“It might take several years for the change in brain physiology to be apparent in my behaviour. But by then my memories will be unreliable – Doctor Rao says that the main problem will be mingling of dream and experience – I might end up passing on my weird dreams to you instead of the useful stuff.”
“But Daddy – you’ve heard of those new implants coming on the market – they’re supposed to detect fallacious memories and warn you before writing them onto the chip...”
But he was shaking his head. “I can’t take that risk. I don’t know what my memories will be like by then. If I myself cannot distinguish between real and dream, what good will the implant be? No, I must backup my memories now. If the medicines keep the tumour at bay, I’ll take the backup...again.” And he shuddered.
The process of taking ‘backup’ of living memories was a long and painful one. The patient virtually went through every single scene of his life, every bit of learned or intuited knowledge, with an option of selecting the important memes to be recorded on command. Many people found parts of their lives too frightening to relive, and stopped the process midway. Such incomplete chips, of course, were useless, because implanting them into the recipient’s brain could cause disorientation and eventual madness.
I looked up to see Daddy walking into the next room. “I’m calling Doctor Rao up here so he can check you out too.” There came the sounds of him speaking the Reception’s ID into the vidphone, and asking for room 622, presumably where
Doctor Rao was lodged. After he completed his discussion, he came back in.
“Listen, Sudarshan.” He said. “I’ve decided on the Pivot Fact for the memories.”
It was always difficult, once the recipient had been implanted with the chip, to distinguish between the recipient’s own memories and the implanted ones. In fact, when the implanted memories might themselves be composed of third- and fourth-hand ones, it got really complicated. Thus it became important for the recipient to use some small fact, feeling, image, as a point of reference, as the Pivot Fact. The implanted memories felt different; they came from a different physiology and the feeling of them was subtly different. Once a Pivot Fact was decided on, the feel of that fact was useful to identify the other implants. It was helpful for the donor to mentally mark that bit as conspicuously as he could while preparing the chip.
“Shouldn’t we be waiting for George? After all, he needs to use the same facts too.” I said.
Daddy shook his head. “I’ll talk to him separately. Now let me complete.
“You remember, when you were in college, you were top of the class in Classical Poetry Studies? But even so, there was one poem you were never able to understand. I explained it to you God knows how many ways, but it never made sense to you.”
I nodded. “It was Focus, by some weird American poet...can’t even remember her name.”
Daddy said, “Yes. And my understanding, my feel for that poem will be my Pivot. All right?”
I thought this was odd. “But George was able to understand that poem; he claimed to love it. This won’t help him at all!”
There was a knock on the door. Doctor Rao, most likely. I stood up to open it, Daddy reached out a hand and sat me down.
“I’m not giving George this chip. It’s for you alone.”
“But... but...” I hunted for words to describe it. “ You shouldn’t do that! He’s your... heir!”
His eyes crinkled as he smiled wickedly. “Was my heir. I’m cutting him out. It was long overdue.”

eff 'em, err.., all

At the end of it, everyone was mostly fed up. Einstein was wrong when he memorably said that he didn't know how WW3 would be fought, but WW4 would be fought with sticks
and stones. Memorable quoting was all that he did, if you ask me. We've still got enough of the deadly stuff to mess around for atleast four generations. We've all just moved on to other pastimes, thank you. Ah, that Einstein. What luck he'd had passing off such elaborate dung as that relativity theory for 2 centuries!

"Hmmm... I think it's time you popped out and had your hair cut", she said, lazily running her hands through his curls.

"My locks of hair, talismans so rare, my maiden so fair..."

"Oh no... not in the morning, I beg of you - I admit bad poetry is much easier to digest in the night. Seriously, go."

"Yup."

***
He gazed at the ceiling. Blank.
"Sri - either you get yourself tidied up tomorrow or don't come. That's about it. I have neither the patience nor the need to come mopping up after you. Those Japs come in tomorrow - so tie, haircut, black shoes. Shave. Pinstripe - if you own one".

Of course he didn't. You cooked your own skin on a slow roast in those, so it made sense to wear them only if you were a masochistic anthrophage.

He had to get up. Too hungry not too.

An apple later, he hopped over across the road to the saloon. In his fervid imagination (the part they wanted to repress), he could never think of that word without half-expecting a gunslinger in sepia to rush out. He realised it was also the news report. Perhaps it was the relative lack of concern among his fellow men. No disaster movie scenarios, no mass panic, no actor rushing against the crowds looking for his sweetheart or his pet iguana. Guess everyone felt the same way - if the rest of the populace didn't think anything was wrong, why should I? It was an infectious line of thinking.

Both chairs were occupied so he settled down. The lack of chirping there was very evident. So not everyone was unconcerned - even the not so news-savvy head hairdresser. Who looked at him sans his usual froth:

"To aapanE nyuuz sunaa? Kyaa kyaa hotaa hai naa saab. Par sach kahuu.n kyaa, apanE jaisaa logo.n pE kuch khaas difference nahi paDhanEwaala."

"apaNe jaisaa"? Was he included in it or was it the ilk of the lower middle classes?

"kaun kambha.kt kehtaa hai" that he wouldn't have any "far.k" happen to him? Perhaps all you needed to do was to do it to yourself.

"15 minute aur lagEgaa saab - abhi start kiyaa hai."

He threw a hand over his long curls - it had taken him the best part of 25 days and a little-known concoction to get them in this state. No, it had taken him 25 years to muster up the courage to grow them up in stiff violation of a life-long family code of never deviating from the boringly straight, the incessantly cautious, the strictly sober. A cantonment life in place of Brylcreem and zero cuts scything through any hairs that his father could grasp in one clutch of a fist. She wouldn't have liked it - she preferred his close crops though she always liked to tease him about his smooth looks.

She never goes away, does she? It had been 3 years 2 months since he stopped trying. But she lingered on, appearing in cameos in his mindspace each day, for varying times, with the most unusual associations. Oh, the ribbing he'd given her when she got her flowing tresses cropped - she took it rather well. It gave him a sense of importance, when she vowed never to repeat that again. Important at being able to influence such decisions in her life. Not all decisions though.

He felt a little warm. He needed to stretch out and think. With a "me.n baahar huu.n", he stepped out.

People don't realise it, but conformity is a disease - a social one. It spreads through contact, imposes its fangs pandemically and kills silently. Think for instance: what else explains such incredibly foolish trends such as bell-bottoms in the First Cold War Age, or those elaborate Victorian puffs and wigs, or if you go right back, the first rags covering the early Homo Sapiens (if they were conscious of being so haute couture). Similarly for weapons: Heads of State just had to have what everyone else had - sticks, then arrowheads, then cannonballs and so on. It never occured to them how easier it would be to not conform - all that wasted time. For we are a dying species and have always been.

He pulled out his IdCore to check all his messages. Part of the withdrawal symptoms was learning to live without the hope that she would pass by, physically or electronically. It must have been the result of the day before, for there it was. News.

"Do you know she's back in town? Had been [d|w]ining at Kings and who should I see checking in?". So read a message from a school friend. One of their school friends.

It was 9:30 am. In an hour was the bus that took him and fellow drones into the comb. To buzz with bees from a different comb. A bigger, sweeter comb to his queen.

It was easy to see why he was back home in within the next quarter of an hour, furiously clicking through to look for the Kings number. It took him the better part of the next hour to muster up the courage to dial. (Why? Who wouldn't have the guts to call? Especially when half the waking world was calling up each other to discuss yesterday's news? What will we do? Can it be true? What rot, I say! And here he couldn't whisper "Free? I'm coming over".)

Perhaps it was all that cowardly delay, for in response to his "... do you know which room she's in? Then may I please be connected to 6-1-1?", all he got was "I'm sorry sir, she's out at the moment." Crappy diem was all that he could muster today. 6 plus one plus one was eight. Never was his lucky number. He spent another hour rooting out the psychic nuances in the number system applicable to the situation.

Six hours later, he was rolled up in a lounge chair at Kings. He had figured it would be the best place to lay in wait - even if it smacked of desperation. He no longer needed to work at the protective sang froid. It had been quite a while since he realised that he'd not given a moment's thought to work. It never occured to him again in the rest of the day.

Lord Krishna lived for some hundred years. So informs us the Mahabharata. Methuselah put in more years of work than most people put in 5 reincarnations. Just because we live much lesser than them doesn't mean that those were merely myths of someone's fervid imagination. Perhaps we did live that long once. Maybe our genes had just lost the ability along the way. Not that implausible today. Perhaps Nature in her infinite common-sense had finally figured out that the best way to rein in our parasitic tendencies was to turn the screws on the longevity dials. id est, stop trusting Ebolas and Falciparums to do the job. Only she got beaten to the post.

He hadn't seen her return, finding that out at 8:30 pm when he asked the reception. Not bothering to call up or to smoothen any strand of his dishevelled head, he found himself tapping her door and walking in, in response to her call.

She didn't seem to be too surprised, just a touch of amusement. She opened her mouth in preparation to speak, when he interjected:

"I don't care who you're seeing, if you're married, if you don't plan on staying, if you don't fancy me, if you'd like us to be friends, if you have other ideas. I don't, we don't, have a lot of time. All I'd like to do is to be with you. As long as I can."

A beat. She spoke. "I don't like what you've done to your hair. It will have to wait till tomorrow though".

Nature was beaten, finally, by our inbuilt promise of self-destruction that kicked in eventually. Pity that the Einsteins and Vernes and Clarkes in all their clever scenarios of the future never thought of a future-less present. When your present isn't big enough, what good is your future? So when we launched gene-mutating chemicals insidiously into each other's water and air (the two entities that don't respect any geographical boundaries) and ended up reducing the average human lifespan to a petite 35 years, what do you expect people to do? Beat chests and complain? Do you think we have the time? It took us 20 years since the end of the Third big war to explain the symptoms and since then we've been scrambling to live, not merely saving it up for a post-retirement time table.

Today all geniuses remain merely precocious. Teenage sports sensations don't have to look to a future of anonymity. The vast majority of us continue to remain in the shadows. Like the poet said, "Obscurity has its tale to tell. Like the figure on the studio-bed in the corner, out of range, smoking, watching and waiting". Only we aren't waiting any more.

I just don't have the strength to "research" the effects of all this on human civilisation for your benefit. I only have about a thousand sunsets left in the account, and I'd rather be counting them than talking to you.

[Note]
As is probably obvious, I *did not* enjoy writing this, or even righting all that went awry! I struggled to weave all the four mandatory elements and it might be visible. I don't know how it has turned out, I'm too exhausted to have an opinion. Perhaps the story idea hasn't come out very clear - let me know and I'll elaborate :-). Soon after beginning this exercise, the only goal, like the Marathon Man's, was to finish (hopefully with all my teeth intact ;-), which I have.

If none of you are planning to put in your efforts, can we (*spluttering*) move on to the next lab (*last gasp*) please? (*droops*)

Lab #2 - "I have no pen and I must write"

Write a piece of psi phi [0] (or skiffy [1], or speculative fiction if you will) that combines the following fragments to creative effect (this is the first time I'm doing this, so if you're frustrated by the options, let it show in your writing)

* a voice (presumably on the phone): hello ... can you connect me to room six one one ? ... (pause) six one one

* a long-overdue haircut

* Obscurity has its tale to tell. Like the figure on the studio-bed in the corner, out of range, smoking, watching and waiting. [2]

Deadline: 10th June (extended to 24th June as a consequence of temporal delays and a sag in comprehension)

[0] from the magazine by Bob Lichtman
[1] used a lot by Harlan Ellison (incidentally, today's his birthday)
[2] from a poem called FOCUS by adrienne rich