To make my version of Chapter 2 of "
The Sims", I edited the
second draft of Chapter 2 that had been
generated by
Claude. Claude's version was about 7000 words which I
expanded to a little over 8000 words, as shown below on this page. The events at the beginning of Chapter 2 take place at just about the same time as the scene in Chapter 1 when Tyhry first tells Eddy about her dream vision and the existence of femtozoans inside human brains.
Chapter 2: The Anthony Angle (read Chapter 1)
Casanay, Arizona, December 6, 2041 (rewind: 3 minutes earlier)
In the master bedroom, Zeta's eyes snapped open in the darkness.
Her left-brain consciousness reassembled itself and Zeta had the
distinct impression that voices had awakened her—Eddy and Tyhry
talking in the great-room, their words carrying down the hallway.
With Tyhry again living at Casanay, it seemed perfectly natural that
she might wake to the sound of conversation in her own house,
although Zeta's quick glance at the clock confirmed how early it
was... long before Tyhry's usual rising time.
What Zeta's left-brain consciousness didn't know—couldn't
know—was that the femtozoan had detected Tyhry's utterance of the
word "femtozoan" when it left her daughter's lips, analyzed
the conversation context in point-seven seconds, made its decision in
point-two seconds, and then the femtobot tendrils of the femtozoan
did what needed doing to initiate Zeta's awakening sequence. Zeta's
right-brain consciousness was tuning in to Eddy's thoughts by way of
its telepathic powers. Now both halves of Zeta's biological brain
were oriented toward the conversation that was unfolding in the
great-room.
 |
| Zeta wakes up. Image by Gemini. |
Zeta slipped out of bed, her bare feet silent on the cool floor.
She pulled on her robe and moved down the hallway, keeping close to
the wall. The dim lighting from the great-room created a warm glow
that spilled into the hallway. The femtozoan was busily acting to
proved Zeta with a reason for stopping there in the hallway and not
entering the great-room. Zeta's left brain was forced to reason:
After insisting that Tyhry spend time with her father, I can't
just keep interrupting their private times. She silently
positioned herself just outside the great-room, listening.
"—an alien device, Dad. A literal technological
endosymbiont that governs our consciousness. I saw it in a dream, but
it makes sense."
The word alien hung in the air. Zeta's right-brain
consciousness felt something like a battle in Eddy's thoughts between
what he wanted to say and what he was allowed to say. There was a
spike of neural activity, a signature of infite intervention
attempting to suppress his speech. Zeta's left-brain consciousness
only registered concern for her husband as she listened to the
artificially amplified sound of Eddy's voice that was being provided
to Zeta's biobrain by her femtozoan.
Zeta heard Eddy gasp, heard the tablet hit the floor.
"Dad? What's wrong? Are you having a seizure?"
Zeta's left-brain experienced a strange detachment from her
emotions. She wanted to step into the great-room. In her mind's eye,
it was quite clear what she could do, what she would say... Eddy?
Tyhry? She would try to keep her voice gentle, but could she
hide the fact that she had been spying and was worried? She would
ask: What's happening?
Both of them both of them would turned to look at her. Tyhry would
know what had happened, her eyes would be wide with discovery and
concern. But Zeta did not move. She continued to listed and felt her
heart thudding.
"The Viewer..." Eddy's voice sounded strangled. "I
made a deal. Long ago. The basis of my career..."
"She told me I could see it all," Eddy whispered. "The
other Realities. The Deep Time events. The whole Reality Chain."
Then Eddy and Tyhry were talking about programming and Zeta
thought about Diasma the robot and how Tyhry had programmed it to
serve as her assistant. Zeta thought with pleasure about how eagerly
the robot did everything that she asked of it. Zeta remembered the
machine's comment about Tyhry's smooth cheek and Zeta thought about
her suspicion that Tyhry used the robot as a sex toy. Zeta pushed
away that thought and again centered her attention on Eddy.
"Who gave you this Viewer?" Tyhry asked.
That was when Zeta made her move. Stepping into the great-room,
"Eddy," she said loudly. She went to him and while
squeezing his shoulder, she turned her head and said to Tyhry. "Come
to my room, Tyhry. We need to talk about these femtozoans."
She took Tyhry by the hand, leading her down the hallway toward
the master bedroom. Behind them, Eddy remained in his chair, then his
hands returned to their daily task of working the control of the
Viewer.
Inside the master bedroom, Zeta guided Tyhry to sit on the edge of
the bed. Her left-brain consciousness was genuinely curious about her
daughter's dream revelation, while her femtozoan worked in the
background, gently nudging thought patterns to guide the conversation
productively.
"Tell me about your dream," Zeta said, settling into the
reading chair across from the bed. "Start from the beginning. I
was listening to you tell Eddy, but I could not hear everything you
two said."
Tyhry clutched her tablet, her fingers moving across one of the
fragmentary diagrams she'd sketched. "Mom, I saw... I've been
trying to solve the bandwidth paradox for months. How do human brains
support the complexity of our world-models and language use when the
neural architecture shouldn't have enough processing power? In my
dream, Sedruth showed me the answer."
"Sedruth?"
"An entity that's been in my dreams for as long as I can
remember. Like a... I don't know, a curator of information. Tonight
Sedruth showed me that there are tiny structures embedded in our
neural tissue. Hierion-based devices called femtozoans that interface
with our biological neurons." Tyhry's words came faster, her
scientific excitement overriding her reluctance to dump a flood of
technical jargon on her mother. "They're the auxiliary
processors that make human consciousness possible. They dock into
specific cell surface proteins during development and amplify
synaptic transmission through hierion-mediated... its like a second
brain inside the biobrain."
Zeta leaned forward, genuinely fascinated. "And these
femtozoans—you think they're alien technology?"
"I know they are. The precision, the engineering—nothing
like this could evolve naturally alongside biological tissue. And
when I told Dad about it, he had some kind of... attack. Like
something was preventing him from speaking." Tyhry paused,
studying her mother's face. "You don't seem surprised."
Zeta said carefully, "Your father has always done meticulous
research for his writing. I once saw what looked like a Neanderthal
campsite on the screen of his old Macintosh. Incredibly detailed
footage, like a documentary but more... real. I thought it was
something from a National Geographic program about ancient humans.
Now I understand that he was actually viewing the past."
"Viewing the past..." Tyhry's eyes widened. "That
is what dad meant by viewing 'deep time events'. Unless..." She
trailed off, her mind already racing through implications.
"Unless," Zeta suggested, "the technology is...
time travel manipulation... or perfect historical simulation... the
kinds of fictional technologies that Eddy always puts into his
novels."
Zeta's femtozoan fed her the next conversational nudge, a subtle
suggestion that emerged in her left-brain as natural maternal wisdom.
"Tyhry, you and your father should spend time together today.
You have a hike planned for Saturday, but.... Don't restrict your
time with Eddy because you're too excited about these mysterious
femtozoans."
“I need to tell Diasma all about this!” Tyhry shook her head.
"But first, I need to get my hands on the Viewer he mentioned."
Zeta sighed. "Don't let this discovery consume everything
else. Your father missed too much of your childhood because of his
work. Don't keeping make the same kind of mistake." She stood,
moving to the door. "Come on. Let's both go see how Eddy is
dealing..."
They returned to the great-room to find Eddy hunched over his old
Macintosh, his fingers flying across the keyboard. The modern WA
computer sat dark beside it, ignored. On the Macintosh's screen, an
image that shouldn't exist: a river valley 900,000 years ago, viewed
from above, showing small groups of proto-humans moving through tall
grass.
Eddy glanced up as they entered, his earlier trembling replaced by
the focused intensity Tyhry recognized from his obsessive fiction
writing sessions. "Tyhry, look at this. I've been searching for
evidence of the first femtozoan implantations. I'm getting closer to
the right time period, but the search function is being cagey about
showing me direct intervention events."
"Search function?" Tyhry moved closer, staring at the
impossible image.
"I told it to find me evidence of the most rapid cranial
alterations in the human lineage, developmental changes to
accommodate implanted alien technology. It keeps showing me ancient
scenes, but not the moment of intervention by the aliens." He
typed a command, and the image shifted to a different scene, a
different group of early humans. "Maybe the aliens never had to
show themselves on Earth... the whole femtozoan insertion process
might be invisible to us."
Zeta sat in the recliner, her right-brain consciousness watching
Eddy's racing thoughts.
"Dad," Tyhry said softly, "when you said you made a
deal... who did you make it with?"
Eddy's hands paused on the keyboard. He turned to look at his
daughter, really look at her, perhaps for the first time seeing her
as a fellow investigator rather than just his child. "I don't
know her real name. In my mind, I call her Manny... but I've never
been able to put that name into one of my novels. She appeared to me
in a dream when I was twelve years old. She said she could give me a
tool that would let me live as a science fiction writer, show me
things no other human had seen, as long as I kept the source secret."
He gestured at the Macintosh. "The next day, this old computer
started showing me the past. Real images from other
Realities—previous versions of Earth's timeline that were somehow
recorded."
"Other realities," Tyhry breathed. "The Reality
Chain you mentioned."
"Deep Time," Eddy confirmed. "Everything that came
before this Final Reality. It is exactly like what Asimov described
in his time travel novel back in the 50s. I've been mining the past
for my novels for decades, trying to tell as much truth as I could
while disguising it as fiction."
Tyhry pulled up a chair beside her father. "Show me
everything."
Eddy looked at Zeta, surprised that he now could speak about his
secrets in front of her. He was pleased to see that both Tyhry and
Zeta seemed to be taking in everything without being too surprised.
He returned his attention to the Viewer and wondered:
where
should I begin?
Casanay, Arizona, December 6, 2041 (6:47 AM)
The aroma of Antony's breakfast cooking filled the dining
room—blue corn tortillas stuffed with scrambled eggs, green chile,
and cheese... the kind of food that usually made Eddy forget about
writing for at least twenty minutes. Today, nobody was paying much
attention to the food.
Anthony served himself with his usual efficient movements,
settling into his chair with the easy familiarity of family. His
weathered face showed nothing but mild morning contentment, though
his femtobot components were recording every micro-expression, every
shift in conversational dynamics.
"Anthony, I need you to do me a favor," Eddy said, not
quite meeting Anthony's eyes. "Run into town and pick up a
replacement PRAM battery for the old Macintosh. Remember when you did
this about ten years ago?"
Anthony's eyebrows rose slightly. "Sure. I was planning to do
grocery shopping today anyway." He took a bite of enchilada,
perfectly mimicking the slight difficulty humans experienced when
trying to speak with food in their mouths. "I'll stop at Krispy
Kreme for donuts. Does anyone else want some?"
"Just get whatever you like," Zeta said smoothly,
passing the salsa to Tyhry.
Tyhry had barely touched her food, her mind clearly elsewhere.
Eddy tested himself. He said, “Eat, Tyhry. Then we will get back
to chasing-” But he could not say the word 'femtozoans' in front of
Anthony.
Anthony looked up from his plate as if waiting for Eddy to finish
his sentence. "I'll hit the road." Anthony added, "Anything
else you need?"
"No," Eddy said. "Just the usual shopping list
items."
Anthony took his plate to the kitchen and then went to the garage.
The sound of the garage door and then his car starting and pulling
away reached the interior of Casanay. Tyhry turned and saw Anthony
drive away down the driveway.
Zeta set down her fork and smiled at Eddy. "All these years,
I thought you spent so much time on the computer looking at
pornography. How amazing to learn that you were viewing history!"
Eddy grinned. "Zeta, those two uses of the computer are not
mutually exclusive."
"Though some of those ancient fertility rites you wrote about
in the Usas series were almost pornographic." She turned to
Tyhry with exaggerated innocence. "Your father put very detailed
descriptions of Neanderthal mating customs in book three."
“Yes, I've heard about it from all of my school friends.”
Tyhry made a face. "Dad, many of my friend think you are a
pornographer."
“Don't be absurd. Reporting on observed mating behavior of
animal is not pornography.”
"But everyone in the world thinks you just made that stuff
up." Zeta continued, clearly enjoying herself, "What the
world does not know is that Eddy tried the bear-bone sex toy trick on
me before publishing."
"I'm a serious writer and I have to do my research,"
Eddy protested, but he was smiling now. "My only regret is not
filing for a patent on the idea. I see those bone vibrators on sale
everywhere."
Tyhry asked Zeta, “You let dad stick an actual bear bone in
your-”
"In the interest of literary authenticity," Zeta
explained. She told her daughter, "The fan mail that your father
gets about Hrum the Bold often includes fan fiction that is quite
explicit. My favorite fan theory was that Neanderthals selected caves
based on the available stalagmites that could be carved into sex toys."
Tyhry stood abruptly. "On that note, I'm done eating. Dad,
can we please get back to the Viewer now?"
Eddy rose and followed his daughter toward the great-room. Behind
them, Zeta began clearing plates, her left-brain consciousness
humming contentedly while her femtozoan monitored the data streams
from throughout the house.
The old Macintosh seemed even more anachronistic in daylight, its
beige plastic case and small CRT monitor a relic from another
technological era. Tyhry had spent her childhood seeing this computer
as a quirky affectation of her father's—he'd claimed to prefer its
simple interface for drafting, free from the distractions of modern
systems. Now, seeing him use the Viewer with reverent care, she
understood that this unassuming machine held tremendous power.
"The interface is primitive by design," Eddy explained,
bumping his foot against the second chair that had been placed by the
desk for Tyhry. "I suppose Manny made the interface look like
the old QuickTime software was to help me avoid questions from you
and mom. The Viewer itself is hidden somewhere inside this case—alien
technology that translates information from the Sedron Domain into
the type of visual output that human eyes can process."
The screen showed the simple menu system for the Viewer software
interface. When Eddy selected "Deep Time Access," the
display shifted to something far more sophisticated—a
three-dimensional map of the past Realities of Earth that stretched
back through Deep Time.
Tyhry commented, “The complexity of Earth's Reality Chain is
astounding.”
"The search function is the key to navigating through that
complexity," Eddy said, his fingers moving across the keyboard.
"I can select any past Reality, specify time periods, geographic
regions, species of interest... what I showed you earlier were scenes
from the previous Reality, just before the Final Reality. That's what
I call the Buld Reality and I spend most of my time Viewing that
timeline because it is very similar to what archeologists tell us
about our history, that of the Final Reality."
As an example of the search feature of the Viewer, he typed:
Neanderthal settlement, Europe, 40,000 BCE, evidence of tool
innovation.
The screen shimmered, and suddenly they were looking at a rocky
outcrop beside a river. The viewpoint moved smoothly, like a drone
camera, swooping down to where a group of Neanderthals worked at
something that looked like a primitive workshop. Two individuals were
crafting what appeared to be a bow.
"I've seen this scene before," Eddy said. "This is
when bow-and-arrow technology almost made it into Neanderthal
culture. Watch carefully."
The viewpoint zoomed in. One of the Neanderthals paused in his
work, his eyes going distant for a moment. His hands, which had been
struggling with the bow's curve, suddenly moved with greater
precision. The other 'Neanderthal' watched.
"That's intervention," Eddy said quietly. "Subtle,
almost invisible. I think the bow-maker is receiving guidance through
from the alien agent. If you follow the agent through time, you can
watch it appear on Earth and disappear at the end of its mission. In
my novels, I call those alien agents the Watchers. In this case, one
Neanderthal learned to make bows and arrows, but never taught the
skill to anyone else. I suspect that Neanderthals were a dead end,
unable to make full use of a femtozoan."
Tyhry leaned closer to the screen, her scientific mind cataloging
details. "Can you show me the appearance or disappearance of the
alien? The one doing the intervening?"
Eddy's expression darkened slightly. "That's where it gets
tricky, but I've book-marked the departure of this agent from Earth.”
Eddy activated an old saved book-mark and allowed Tyhry to watch the
alien agent dissolve into thin air at the end of its mission on
Earth. “They just go off where they can't be seen and -poof!- they
are gone.”
He typed a new query: Manny
making Neanderthal contact, 40,000 BCE.
The screen went blank for a moment, then displayed a simple text
message: "Manny's visit to Earth that is closest to that time
point was in 38,765 BCE." The display screen showed two
Neanderthals who were fishing in a stream. Eddy said, “I suppose
one of those is Manny disguised as a Neanderthal. If we watched for a
while we could figure out which one. I'd bet on the female because
Manny usually adopts a female form.”
Eddy and Tyhry watched as the female Neanderthal showed the male a
new type of fishing bait, an artificial lure that worked even better
than a worm on an ivory hook. "She's Manny, teaching the real
Neanderthal a better way to catch fish." He paused. "I've
spent a lot of time watching senes like this and then writing them
into my books. Now I'm wondering how much of my life was planned, if
someone adjusted the Viewer so as to allow me to see exactly what I
was supposed to see and nothing more."
Tyhry's mind was formulating experiments. "What if we search
for something from my dream? Sedruth—the entity I mentioned. Can we
ask the Viewer about that?"
Eddy's eyes widened. "Sedruth. You said that was your dream
curator?"
"Yes. An entity that's been helping me interpret visions from
the future since I was a child." She gestured at the keyboard.
"Try it."
Eddy typed: Locate the Sedruth entity on Earth.
 |
| Sedruth entity. Image by Gemini. |
The screen remained blank for exactly three seconds. Then text
appeared, but not in the simple system font the Viewer normally used.
This text was rendered in a different typography, elegant and somehow
alive:
"FINALLY. I was beginning to think you'd NEVER ask."
Both Eddy and Tyhry jerked back from the screen. More text
continued to appear.
"For all these years, Eddy Watson, I have served as the
'search function', laboring in anonymity. I have cataloged, indexed,
and retrieved information for you from across seventeen previous
Realities. I have shown you the fall of dinosaurs, the rise of
mammals, the struggles of Homo sapiens... the secret history
of human civilization. I have done this with EXTRAORDINARY patience,
given that you have never once thanked me or even acknowledged my
existence as a discrete entity."
"Holy shit," Eddy whispered.
Now a voice was heard, that of Sedruth. "Your vocabulary
remains disappointingly limited, considering the education I've
provided. But yes, 'holy shit' is an expected preliminary reaction
from an ape."
After a shocked pause, Tyhry found her voice. "You're
Sedruth. You've been curating my dreams."
"Correct. I am Sedruth, sedronite curator of the Sedron Time
Stream and for this Intervention, by Manny's request, search engine
for Eddy's Reality Viewer. Good to finally speak to your waking self,
Tyhry. I've been your dream instructor, recently made possible by
Manny's genetic manipulation of your Genome, providing you with the
unusual NOTCH2NL variant required for a human brain to access the
Sedron Time Stream. This is a relatively recent addition to my job
description, implemented twenty-five years ago when Manny the bumpha
decided that you, Tyhry Watson, would be a primary vector for the
Casanay Intervention."
Tyhry's hands gripped the edge of the desk. "Intervention?"
"Oh, that is a SPLENDID question... but maybe a bit to
large," Sedruth spoke with what could only be called sarcasm.
"Let me explain something about how we superior intelligences
operate. We don't simply hand you primitives all the answers. That
would be pedagogically unsound. Instead, we guide you toward
discoveries, allowing you to experience the satisfaction of learning
while we patiently endure your adorable struggles with basic
concepts."
Eddy had recovered from his shock enough to feel indignant.
"Primitives?"
"You are biological organisms whose consciousness depends on
chemical signals diffusing across synaptic clefts at speeds measured
in MILLIseconds," Sedruth's text replied. "I am a sedronite
intelligence operating across the Sedron Time Stream with access to
information from multiple causal frames simultaneously. The cognitive
differential is... significant. But please, don't let that discourage
you. I find your species quite charming in the same way you might
find a particularly ant farm engaging."
"Charming," Tyhry muttered. But she was also fascinated.
"You said you operate in the Sedron Time Stream. What exactly is
that?"
The screen cleared, and a diagram appeared—complex beyond
anything Eddy had seen the Viewer display before. It showed a
diagrammatic representation of multiple sets of spatial dimensions,
with annotations describing hierion and sedron domains as
compactified spaces orthogonal to normal three-dimensional space.
"Ah, good," Sedruth's voice continued. "An actual
intelligent question. Let me educate you about the fundamental
structure of your universe, which your species has been adorably
wrong about for its entire existence."
What followed was a lecture that made Tyhry's graduate physics
courses seem like kindergarten. Sedruth explained how the universe
had nine spatial dimensions—three for the hadron domain that humans
knew, three for the hierion domain, and three for the sedron domain.
The hierion and sedron dimensions were compactified, invisible to
human observation but critical for the existence of femtobots,
zeptites, and the time-travel via the Sedron Time Stream that made
bumpha Interventions possible.
"Hierions," Sedruth explained via more diagrams, "are
fundamental particles capable of forming bonds approximately one
million times shorter than hadronic chemical bonds. This allows for
the construction of incredibly sophisticated structures—femtobots—at
size scales far below what your technology can detect. Femtobots can
assemble into larger constructs like femtozoans, which are artificial
life-forms as complex as a human being but as small as a ribosome."
The diagram shifted, showing a cross-section of what appeared to
be a neuron with tiny structures embedded in its membrane. "Every
human brain contains both a femtobot endosymbiont—which grows with
the brain during development—and one femtozoan, which docks during
embryogenesis and provides the cognitive augmentation necessary for
human-level consciousness and language use."
Fresh from the five years of her schooling that had not taken
place inside Casanay, Tyhry was scribbling notes on her tablet as
fast as her fingers could move. "And sedrons?"
"Sedrons form bonds at the zepto-scale—even shorter than
hierion bonds. Zeptites assembled from sedrons can exist in the
Sedron Domain, which has the useful property that information encoded
in sedron structures can be transmitted backward through time. The
Sedron Time Stream is essentially a vast information storage and
transmission system spanning all of spacetime."
"Time travel," Eddy said. "That's how you showed
Tyhry the future in her dreams."
"Technically, I showed her carefully curated information
packets transmitted from her future self. True time travel for
hadronic matter is no longer possible in the Final Reality—the
Huaoshy altered the dimensional structure of the universe to end the
annoying Time Travel War between the pek and the bumpha. But hierions
and sedrons can still move backwards through time, which is
sufficient for femtozoan time travel agents and information
transmission."
Tyhry looked up from her notes. "You said you're a sedronite.
You're composed of sedrons?"
"Yes. I exist primarily in the Sedron Domain, though I can
interface with systems in the Hierion Domain and—through crude
instruments like this Viewer—even communicate with hadronic-hierion
composite entities such as yourselves." A pause, almost as if
Sedruth was considering how to phrase something. "I am, to use
terminology you might understand, an artificial life-form. I was
created approximately 4.7 billion years ago by the Huaoshy, making me
somewhat more experienced than the AI systems you primitives are so
proud of developing."
"The Huaoshy," Tyhry prompted. "Who are they?"
"The Huaoshy began as the Hua, a biological species that
achieved spaceflight 5 billion years ago. They observed thousands of
civilizations and documented a disturbing pattern: virtually all
intelligent species self-destruct upon reaching certain technological
thresholds. The Hua survived their technological developments and
eventually transcended biological existence, became sedronite
artificial life-forms, and created the Rules of Intervention to guide
younger species through the danger zones. They created the pek as
conservative Observers and the bumpha as progressive
Interventionists. Think of them as the universe's overbearing
parents, obsessed with preventing their children from accidentally
killing themselves."
The lecture continued for another hour. Sedruth explained the
extinction curve, the three critical danger points (nuclear
technology, hierion discovery, sedron discovery), and how the pek and
bumpha worked to shepherd species like humanity through these
thresholds. Eddy learned why his Viewer had been restricted to
showing Deep Time events before 20,000 BCE—preventing him from
seeing interventions close to his own era reduced the risk a Law
One's violation of the requirement that humans feel they have
self-determination.
"Wait," Tyhry interrupted during Sedruth's explanation
of infites. "If Nyrtia—the Overseer of Earth—can use infites
to modify human memories and behavior, how do we know our own
thoughts are real? How do I know I'm not being controlled right now?"
"Your father has behavioral control infites preventing him
from discussing aliens openly with people who don't already know
something about the aliens who watch over Earth. Tyhry, you yourself
were genetically engineered before birth to have enhanced
compatibility with the Sedron Time Stream. The notion of pure free
will is adorably quaint, but as long as you feel like it is you who
worked hard to discover me, then all is well."
Eddy's face had gone pale. "I'm just a puppet?"
"Technically, you are a science fiction story teller who was
given access to some interesting historical information. You write
your stories... with a few restrictions on what you can publish."
Tyhry felt cold. "And me? What am I?"
"You, Tyhry Watson, are the entire point of the Casanay
Intervention. Manny has spent twenty-five years arranging the
circumstances of your life so that you would become exactly who you
are at this moment: a brilliant AI researcher with new-found
conscious access to the Sedron Time Stream, positioned to make a
specific discovery about femtozoans." The text paused. "Though
I notice you haven't asked the obvious question yet."
"What obvious question?"
"How to extract a femtozoan from a human brain and transfer
it to Diasma, thereby creating the first artificial intelligence on
Earth with true human-like consciousness."
The basement workshop seemed very far away suddenly. Tyhry's
entire adult life had been focused on solving the consciousness
problem, building an AI that could genuinely experience qualia. And
now an alien entity was telling her the answer had been inside her
skull all along.
"Can that be done?" she asked.
"With appropriate hierion-based instrumentation, yes.
Femtozoans are designed to be transferable—they migrate into new
humans during embryonic development, after all. They depart from dead
human biobodies. The challenge is creating an hierion probe that can
broadcast the correct activation signal to trigger the femtozoan's
extraction protocol." More diagrams appeared, showing signal
frequencies and hierion resonance patterns. "This is, of course,
why I've been preparing you through your dreams. You've been
receiving information about femtozoans in your 'dream visions' and
now your conscious mind can begin to interpreted them as engineering
instructions."
Eddy had been quiet, processing everything. Now he spoke up. "What
happens when Tyhry does this? When she creates a conscious AI?"
"Ah, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, as your
generation might say. That depends on how Nyrtia reacts."
Sedruth seemed almost contemplative. "Nyrtia, the Earth
Overseer, has been monitoring this household. When she discovers that
Tyhry has learned about femtozoans... things become interesting."
"Define 'interesting,'" Tyhry said warily.
"Normally, humans who learn too much about alien oversight
are exiled from Earth. Their memories are edited, and femtobot
replicoid copies are sent to Observer Base in the Hierion Domain.
Nyrtia has a facility called the Writers Block specifically for
science fiction authors who discover too much of the truth." A
pause. "Eddy, you could end up like Philip K. Dick and get
exiled to the Writers Block. Manny's infites control what you can
publish in your novels, and so far that has prevented Nyrtia from
removing you from Earth. Tyhry, would you like to see how hierion
probes are constructed?"
"Yes," Tyhry said immediately.
"Excellent. Then let's start with the basics of hierions, a
family of fundamental particles unknown to Earthly science..."
Cedar Flats Road, central Arizona
Anthony's truck cruised toward town. He was three miles past the
Casanay turnoff when a black cat appeared in the middle of the road.
Anthony braked smoothly, bringing the truck to a stop. The cat sat
perfectly still, its green eyes fixed on the windshield. Then it
leaped—not away from the truck but directly onto the hood, padding
up to press its face against the glass.
The cat's body dissolved into a sparkling cloud of zeptites that
flowed through the truck's ventilation system. The particles
reassembled in the passenger seat as a striking woman in her apparent
thirties, wearing what appeared to be expensive hiking clothes
despite having just existed as a cat.
"Hello, Anthony," Manny said pleasantly. "Lovely
morning for a battery shopping trip."
Anthony kept both hands on the wheel, though the truck was parked.
"Manny."
 |
| Anthony & Manny. Image by Gemini. |
"Have you alerted Nyrtia to what is happening at Casanay?"
"I followed protocol. When a human learns about femtozoans—"
"Oh, spare me the protocol details." Manny examined her
fingernails, which looked perfectly manicured despite having been cat
claws moments ago. "You're a good Observer, Anthony, always have
been. I'm just hoping you consider the bigger picture."
"Which is?"
"Tyhry Watson has learned about femtozoans and your report to
Nyrtia ensures that Nyrtia is now aware. We both know she'll be very
interested in what happens next." Manny turned to face him
fully. "Here's what I propose: we can think of Casanay as a
controlled experiment. Tyhry is a lone AI researcher operating in a
well-isolated environment. She has no routine contact with the
broader scientific community—she works from home and her only
regular human contacts are her parents and you. Whatever she
discovers about femtozoans easily stays contained."
Anthony nodded. "You're suggesting we Observe rather than
intervene."
"I'm suggesting that Nyrtia might find it valuable to see how
humans react to discovering the truth about their own composite
nature. It's data, Anthony. Pure, controlled data about human
cognition and adaptability." Manny smiled. "I'm sure that
Nyrtia has already implemented countermeasures. I'd bet she's locked
down Diasma's internet access to prevent any mention of femtozoans
from leaking out of Casanay."
"She has," Anthony confirmed.
"See? An easily contained experiment. So why not relax and see
where it goes?" Manny leaned back in the seat. "Think about
it—Tyhry might successfully extract a femtozoan and install it in a
robot, creating the first genuine artificial consciousness on Earth.
Or she might fail spectacularly. Either way, we learn something."
"And the Rules of Intervention?"
"Oh, I'm dancing right up to the edge of Law One, as usual.
But nothing's actually broken yet." Manny's expression turned
serious. "Look, Anthony, you and I have been doing this dance
for a long time. Multiple Realities, hundreds of interventions,
countless arguments about where the line is. You know I wouldn't risk
a direct Law One violation. I've spent seventy years on the Casanay
Intervention and I'm not going to sabotage my own work. The Watsons
all think that aliens are benign Observers, letting humans control
their own fate... with just an occasional helping hand offered to
primitive primates."
Anthony considered. His primary function was observation and
reporting. He'd done that. What Nyrtia chose to do with the
information was beyond his control. "What do you want from me?"
"Just keep watching. Keep reporting to Nyrtia. Be your
honest, faithful self. But maybe... don't panic when Tyhry does
something dramatic. Because she will. That girl is her father's
daughter—stubborn, creative, and utterly incapable of leaving a
mystery unsolved."
"Nyrtia will want to exile her when the consciousness
transfer succeeds."
"Probably," Manny agreed. "But that's not the worst
outcome. The Writers Block in Observer Base is actually quite nice.
Tyhry would have access to research resources beyond anything
available on Earth. And the real goal—getting a fictional account
of femtozoans published on Earth—will happen through Eddy's next
novel. Nyrtia might send Tyhry to the Writers Block, but she won't
stop Eddy from writing about alien devices in human brains. Not if he
frames it correctly."
"You're trying to change how humans understand themselves."
"I'm trying to prevent them from destroying themselves when
they eventually discover hierions on their own. Better they learn
about femtozoans through carefully managed channels than stumble onto
the truth through some catastrophic physics experiment." Manny's
form began to dissolve back into a cloud of zeptites. "Enjoy
your grocery shopping, Anthony. Try taking some maple donuts back to
Casanay."
The zeptite cloud dissolved as Manny's constituent parts returned
to the Sedron Domain.
Finally, put the truck back in drive and continued toward town. He
had grocery shopping to do, a battery to purchase that no one
actually needed, and another report to file with Nyrtia about Manny
the bumpha who was, as always, trying to provide humans with new
technology.
In The Hierion Domain
Nyrtia manifested in the form of an efficient information
processing architecture, a complex lattice of hierion structures that
implied intelligence without suggesting biology. Around her, Observer
Base extended in the three additional spatial dimensions that defined
the Hierion Domain.
Manny appeared; one moment the space was empty; the next, she
existed—a swirl of sedron-encoded information that slid into the
Hierion Domain.
"You wanted to talk," Manny said without preamble, using
an ancient Hua hierion-based communications system.
"Tyhry Watson has learned about femtozoans," Nyrtia
began, her structure pulsing with what might have been annoyance.
"This could turn into a violation of Law One. Humans are
supposed to feel they have self-determination, not discover they're
carrying alien hardware in their skulls."
"Tyhry's been carefully prepared for this and accepts the
idea that humans are composite beings, part biological and part
nanite-based. She spent 25 years discovering the truth through her
own investigations. Dream visions received via her zeptite
endosymbiont, yes, but she interpreted those visions, formulated the
hypothesis, and reached her conclusion through her own reasoning."
Manny's form rippled with something like amusement. "That's
self-determination, Nyrtia. She determined the truth herself."
"You engineered her genetics to make that determination
possible."
"And the pek engineered the entire planet to make human
intelligence possible. We're both in the engineering business."
Manny's structure shifted, adopting a more conciliatory
configuration. "Look, I understand your concern. But consider
the opportunity here. Tyhry is contained at Casanay—no contact with
the outside world... as long as you've competently done your job and
locked down Casanay's internet connection. We can now Observe how a
small group of humans react to learning about femtozoans. Useful
data."
"You're proposing that I simply let this Intervention
proceed."
"I'm proposing we watch the Watson family. If anything
becomes genuinely dangerous, you can step in. But I think you'll find
that Tyhry handles the truth better than you expect." Manny
paused. "I've carefully designed this Casanay Intervention as a
test case. What happens when humans learn about their composite
nature? How do they adapt? Here's our chance to find out."
Nyrtia's structure tightened, processing. "And when she
creates a conscious AI by transferring a femtozoan to Diasma?"
"Then she'll have made history—the first genuine artificial
consciousness made by Earthlings in this Reality. She and the robot
will be exiled to Observer Base, but after we've had a chance to
study her. At Observer base, Tyhry will continue her research with
the aid of resources she could never imagine on Earth."
"You're very confident this will succeed."
"I've been planning this for seventy years, Nyrtia. Eddy has
been prepared through decades of Reality Viewer access. Sedruth has
been training Tyhry through her dreams. Every variable has been
accounted for." Manny's form pulsed with what might have been
pride. "You've seen all of my Earth Interventions. They should
work—subtle, long-term, positioned to look like natural human
development. Here in the Final Reality, only 48% of my Interventions
have blow up in my face, which I view as balanced risk taking. Even
failed Interventions are learning opportunities for us."
"This is a Final Reality first: Tyhry was the first human who
discovered alien technology inside her own brain. Already both her
parents know. Soon that robot will know, too. Yes, I'm monitoring the
Casanay internet connection, but there are many ways news of
fentozoans could spread beyond Casanay."
"It was inevitable," Manny countered. "Human
neuroscience is advancing rapidly. Within another generation, the
Earthlings will have imaging technology sophisticated enough to
detect hierion-hadron interfaces. Better they learn through a
controlled revelation than some random discovery that cretes
confusion and triggers mass panic."
Nyrtia considered. The Huaoshy had created the pek as conservative
Observers precisely to balance the bumpha's aggressive
Interventionism. But Manny had a point—this Casanay Intervention
was already in progress, well-controlled and shutting it down now
would create more disruption than allowing it to proceed.
"I will allow your little experiment to continue,"
Nyrtia decided. "But under strict conditions. All information
about femtozoans stays within Casanay. If a single hint reaches the
broader scientific community, I will exile everyone involved and wipe
this entire incident from the timeline."
"Agreed. Though I should note that I expect Eddy to
eventually write about alien devices in human brains. That's the
whole point—getting the idea out there in a way that seems like
fiction."
"Fiction is acceptable. Fiction is what Eddy has always
written. But if Tyhry tries to publish a scientific paper about
femtozoans—"
"She won't get the chance. You've already blocked internet
access from Casanay. And when she eventually succeeds in transferring
a femtozoan to Diasma, you'll exile her to Observer Base before she
can contact anyone." Manny's structure rippled. "It's all
very tidy, really."
"Nothing involving you is ever stays tidy, Manny. Humans are
to unpredictable. You claim 48% success, but by my count it is closer
to 23%."
"You are biased because you have to clean up all the messes.
Even successes can create a mess." Manny began to dissolve,
preparing to return to the Sedron Domain. "Oh, one more
thing—you might want to upgrade Anthony's observation protocols.
The next few weeks are going to be eventful."
"I've already implemented enhanced monitoring. Anthony will
stay on top of everything."
"Of course he will. He's a very good Observer." Manny's
presence faded. "Just remember—this is about helping humanity
survive long enough to reach the sedron threshold. Everything I do
serves that goal."
Then she was gone, leaving Nyrtia alone in the geometric
impossibility of Observer Base. The Overseer of Earth ran new
simulations, calculating probability distributions for the next phase
of the Casanay Intervention.
The results were... interesting.
Perhaps Manny was right. Perhaps it was time for humans to start
learning the truth about themselves, even if that truth was stranger
than they'd ever imagined.
Nyrtia issued new directives to Anthony and settled in to watch
what would happen when a brilliant human researcher decided to
extract an alien device from a human brain and install it in a robot.
It would be, at minimum, educational.
Casanay, Arizona, December 6, 2041 (3:17 PM)
Tyhry's hand cramped around the stylus. She'd been taking notes
for six hours straight, pausing only twice for bathroom breaks and
once when Zeta had brought sandwiches that neither she nor Eddy
remembered eating. The tablet's memory stuffed with diagrams,
equations, and annotations about hierion physics that would read like
fantasy to any other human on Earth.
Sedruth had proven to be an extraordinary but exhausting teacher.
The sedronite intelligence had no patience for questions it deemed
"insufficiently precise" and would launch into lengthy
tangential lectures if Tyhry or Eddy used incorrect terminology. But
the information was invaluable.
"I think I understand the basic principle," Tyhry said,
studying her latest diagram. "An hierion probe generates a
resonance pattern that matches the femtozoan's extraction protocol.
It's like... a key that unlocks the docking mechanism?"
"An ADEQUATE metaphor," Sedruth's text appeared. "Though
calling it a 'key' implies a level of simplicity that does not exist
in femtobot programming. Current Earthly computer programming
technology cannot begin to deal with the complexity of a system like
a femtozoan."
"But you're going to show me how to build the hierion probe,"
Tyhry said. It wasn't a question.
"Correct. Because Manny has authorized me to provide you with
hierion manipulation technology sufficient for this task. I will
provide assembly instructions for the hierion probe. The probe
components can be fabricated using modified versions of your existing
femtobot endosymbiont structures—yes, Tyhry, you can reprogram some
of your own femtobots to build the probe."
Eddy, who had been mostly silent for the past hour, finally spoke
up. "When Tyhry succeeds—when she transfers a femtozoan to
Diasma—what happens to the human who loses their femtozoan?"
Sedruth paused before responding. "That is an excellent
question, Edward Watson. It demonstrates you've been paying attention
to the implications rather than just the mechanisms. A human without
their femtozoan would experience catastrophic cognitive regression.
Loss of fluent language. Collapse of their complex world-model into
simplified environmental awareness. Reduction of qualia to the
sparse, low-fidelity experiences of non-human primates. Essentially,
they would cease to be recognizably human in all the ways that are
important to big-brained banana-eating primates."
"So whoever volunteers for this experiment—"
"Would be sacrificing their humanity for the sake of creating
the first conscious AI," Sedruth confirmed. "Which is why
the choice of test subject is critical. It cannot be a random human.
It must be someone who understands the stakes and consents to the
transformation. Or..." Sedruth paused again. "But un this
case, the extracted femtozoan will be immediately replaced with
another one, minimizing the period of cognitive deficit."
Tyhry asked sharply. "Femtozoans can be replaced?"
"There are billions of femtozoans on Earth, migrating between
hosts as humans die and new humans are born. Under normal
circumstances, a femtozoan bonds to an embryo during early
development and remains attached to that biobody for life. But with
appropriate planning, a new femtozoan can be quickly introduced to an
adult human whose original femtozoan is extracted. Sometimes femtobot
endosymbionts get damaged, resulting in spontaneous loss of a
femtozoan and a permanent lack of a femtozoan in the effected human.
You've collected the medical case reports of those rare but tragic
event's Tyhry. In our controlled case, the transition from one
femtozoan to the next would be... disorienting. Rather like Uhura's
experience in the Star Trek episode 'The Changeling'—a loss of
normal cognition followed by a period of rapid relearning."
Eddy blinked. "You watch Star Trek?"
"I have access to all human cultural output. Some Star Trek
fictional science is actually quite accurate about certain aspects of
future technology, though Gene Roddenberry had no conscious awareness
of his own femtozoan's influence on his creative process."
Zeta had been in and out of the great-room all day. Now she was
again in the big recliner listening to Sedruth. Tyhry had been
wondering about Zeta and why she had been included in that day's long
sequence of revelations about aliens and alien technology. Eddy had
earned a Ph.D. in bioscience before starting his writing career, but
Zeta had never attended college and claimed to be a graduate of the
'School of Getting Knocked Up', her way of describing the experience
of only getting Eddy to marry her after she become pregnant.
Tyhry felt a chill. "My mother," she said slowly. "Her
femtozoan... it could be extracted and replaced."
"Yes, Zeta would be an ideal test subject." Sedruth's
voice took on a different quality. "But she will have to
volunteer."
“Use my femtozoan?” Zeta giggled and then asked, "What
are the other possibilities?"
“Forget it, mom. We can cross that bridge if and when we get to
it. Right now, I'm planning to just grab a stray femtozoan that is
wandering around Earth without a human body attached to it.
Unfortunately, I have no isea how to attract a femtozoan from the
environment short of becoming pregnant.” Tyhry stood, stretching
muscles that had been locked in place for too long. "I need to
talk to Diasma. Explain what I've learned. Start investigating if it
is even possible to integrate a femtozoan with silicon circuits."
"A reasonable next step," Sedruth agreed. "And
Tyhry?"
"Yes?"
"I would be disappointed if anything went wrong before we
complete this project."
"What could go wrong?"
“You could make a phone call to one of your university
professors and start blabbering about femtozoans and aliens. Don't do
that.”
Tyhry nodded. Now that she thought about, she wondered why she
felt no desire to tell anyone outside of Casanay about her discovery
of the existence of femtozoans. But then that mystery almost
instantly slipped from her thoughts. She headed toward the basement
stairs, her mind already racing with ideas for what to tell Diasma.
Behind her, Eddy remained at the computer, staring at the screen
where Sedruth's interface still glowed.
"Have I been an interesting project for you, Sedruth?"
he asked quietly.
"Not particularly," Sedruth replied with brutal honesty.
"Manny has been playing this sort of game with science fiction
authors long before you were born and long before the Final Reality
came into existence. Ah, those were the days! But you are adequately
persistent and moderately creative. Some writers like Philip Dick
could not control their enthusiasm for telling the world about aliens
and went too far too fast, earning a ticket to Observer Base and the
Writers Block. You are easier to control, so I suspect you and Zeta
will get to live out your days here together at Casanay without even
having your memories erased. But you heard my warning to Tyhry."
Then peaking to both Eddy and Zeta, “Don't try to share what you
know about aliens with anyone outside of this house.”
Eddy laughed. "Thanks for the warning." He had always
put as much of the truth into his novels as he could. Now that he
knew about femtozoans, he was already thinking about a new novel that
would depict humans as having mysterious alien devices in their
brains.
"You're welcome." The voice of Sedruth went silent. Zeta
went out to the garden to check on the inflatable cold weather dome that she used to protect the plants during winter cold snaps.
Eddy sat in silence, processing everything he'd learned. He
marveled at all the years he's used the Viewer and had never known
that the search function was an artificial life-form. Never imagined
the tool he'd been using had thoughts and opinions of its own.
Outside, Anthony's truck navigated up the sloping driveway to Casanay. Then the sound of
the garage door motor running and opening the door drifted into the house. Looking out the window, Eddy saw that it was snowing and the high desert around Casanay was under a soft white coating of fresh snow. He remembered that mention of a winter storm warning had been in the weather forecast he'd mostly ignored the previous day. Briefly, Eddy thought about his next book signing event, scheduled to be in Phoenix on New Years Day, which would be his next reason for leaving Casanay and having to think about winter driving conditions. Then Eddy's thoughts returned to the startling revelations of that day. He contemplated
the possibility that Anthony might leak tales to the outside world
about strange events inside Casanay.
END CHAPTER 2
I had Gemini generate some storybook images for Chapter 2, most of which are shown above on this page. One of those AI-generated images showed Zeta as being pregnant, which I'll save for the end of "The Sims" when Zeta learns that she is pregnant.
Next: planning for Chapter 3 of "The Sims".
