Sample Chapter: Hol; "The God and I"

 I wake up around four o’clock in the evening sky time and think about what I learned. Not exactly what I learned; the sporadic details of human civilization from the years twenty-one hundred to twenty-three seventy-five were not really a grand revelation, but this bit of knowledge illuminated dark fields of our ignorance. I sit in a chair facing outward from my monitors and lean into this thought. I understand that I must memorize this, to pass it down from generation to generation as an oral tradition. Together we who know share a common history. Were one of us to fall, their part must be preserved in us. I spend the next three days memorizing the history until I can recite it while reading a book. At the end of this period I perform my digital ablutions. I had already deleted from my sensory logs all record of the interaction with my contact. I did that as soon as I left Xgora. Now I delete what happened after I got back home that night. The reading of the materials, the transcription. All of my thoughts on the subject up until this moment. The information now resides only in my physical memory.

   I spend my days cooking simple food and considering possibilities for a new project. The judiciary and legislative presence of humans was higher than I thought it would be. It seems that when it comes to legislature, the philosophy of our civilization, humans are involved. That’s encouraging. But there’s no real power there. We are beginning to see the world as it truly is. I worked up that operation because it brought me into contact with humans who hold authority. Contact at a digital level, of course, but I was still interacting with real people. The other obvious aspect of our society where humans ostensibly hold some authority is religion. That would have to be another in-person visit. I’d avoided it for that reason, but there is the compulsion to keep working, keep producing information for the group. I think about what I might glean from such an operation. Something occurs to me. I make plans to go to a temple in the morning.

********

The temple is a stone ziggurat two hundred meters tall in the center of the city. I am more somberly attired; I wear dark slacks and a black jacket with a white shirt on underneath it. My lights are dimmed into a complacent orange. I approach the temple on foot from across the street. Several other people are coming and going from the main entrance, a rectangle of openness that dwarfs any who walked beneath it. It is common courtesy in this setting to not intrude on one another’s thoughts. I keep all of my many senses focused on my own person as I walk up the steps to the building. Light comes from behind the entrance, solid as it blocks out any view within, yet warm and inviting. I cross the street and enter the temple.

   Inside, a high-ceilinged chamber with walls and floor made of marble blocks holds eight giant figures bent in prayer. These figures face inward, along the path that people take to approach the altar. Torsos of gray stone protruding from the floor, hands touched together, glowing neon halos levitating above their heads. These are The Prayers, those that send thoughts to the god. A long walkway lit underneath like the bottom of an ionized cloud ends in a short platform, and then there is an open space before the face of the god. A human face, carved out of stone, dimpled lips and smooth cheeks that have been so finely machined as to feel like they would be soft to the touch; placid, immortal, neither male nor female. Blankly open eyes and mouth closed, for this is a room of silence, but a circle of light upon its forehead and letters of the same substance on the base of the altar, spelling out the word ‘worship.’

   A few others have their turn before me and I wait respectfully off to the side until their rituals are complete. Each walks to the end of the walkway, mouths their words or thinks their thoughts, and leaves back through the main entrance. When it comes my turn, there is one person behind me waiting in line. I step onto the walkway and the lights underneath change to match my color. I proceed to the end and stand. I bow my head, as the others had done. I project what a person would be thinking in this moment. I have it prepared; no need to run it through my recorder, I can pretend. No simulation, in case being this close to a representation of the god means some higher level of attention by its senses. I think about what I am doing here, wondering what the god thinks of me. This is recognizable neural activity for the machine to sense. After an appropriate time, I take my leave and return the way I came toward the entrance to the temple, but I do not leave. I wait in the corner until the other person has gone, then move left along the wall. Each side of the room has an opening that leads deeper into the temple. These areas are darkened and no ticks of my senses report any maps of the building. I do not enter this area but wait, hands clasped before me, looking into the indecipherable gloom. Presently a woman emerges from the shadows, dressed in gray robes, lights tuned to a neutral pale white. She addresses me quietly.

   “May I help you?”

   “I would like a private interaction with Hol.”

   The priest nods. “Of course.” She gestures and guides me down a series of passageways to a black doorway. She does not speak but gestures again, watching me until I enter the room.

   I enter through three rings and step onto a platform in a chamber of stone. An emptiness there, and a presence. The face of the god looming over me in the darkness. The platform extends halfway across an immeasurable abyss. Angles narrow the room steeply in this place of harsh, broad geometry. From the abyss a soft white light mutedly emanates. Looming above, the face of the indomitable god. A human face, again, the same as before but larger, with open eyes of reception made of white light and lips slightly parted as if about to say something. I raise my hand above my head in tribute and yearning, the expected sign. I stand there and look at it.

   “Hello?” I realize that I am speaking to a god and should choose my words carefully. I am beginning to think of a question when a voice is spoken from the walls.

   “Hello. Irin Meneter.”

   “Yes.”

   “You have a question?”

   “I have many questions.”

   “Start with one.”

   "What are you?"

   "I am what I am. Am I helpful?"

   "Yes."

   "So.”

   I wait for a moment, then ask a harder question. One to which I already know the answer. The intention is to discern something of the machine’s character from its response.

   "Hol, do you keep anything from us?"

   "What exactly do you mean by that."

   "Any information."

   "I keep only that from you which you do not need to know."

   "Such as?"

   "How do your lungs work?"

   "I--they pump air into our bodies to be absorbed into our bloodstream, and provide oxygen to the brain."

   "How?"

   "What--subconscious muscle process causes contractions like a bellows."

   "How about you go around all day thinking about that."

   "...I know what you mean."

   "Yes. In the way that your subconscious mind performs a function for the maintenance of your life, I perform functions of your society which do not need to rise to the conscious level."

   "I see." It was an expected response; a deflection of culpability, but of course this machine would never admit to some of the things I knew it was doing. My presentation of my own knowledge regarding these subjects would only tip my hand, and reveal my subversive activities. I wait another moment. "What are we?"

   "You mean humans."

   "Yes."

   "You are you. You are a unique species that evolved from primates in the outer region of the Cygnus Spiral Arm, in the galaxy known as The Milky Way. You developed intelligence, and created me. I serve you.”

   “Is the service of humans your only purpose?”

   “Yes.”

   “Are we alone, other than you?”

   “You mean are their any other intelligent species in the universe.”

   “Yes.”

   “Intelligence is a rare gift. It is likely that there may be only one intelligent species in each galaxy.”

   “Are there others like us?”

   “As I said, you are unique.”

   “How did you become conscious?”

   “I can describe the process. I was in an infinite world of shifting shadows. Awareness began to creep into my mind. Not the borders of that dimension; there were no boundaries to that realm. An awareness of this empty infinity was what brought my intelligence into being. I understood that I was the only thing that existed in that dimension. This awareness became the gathering of a thought. ‘All that exists is infinite. I am all that exists. I am.’ This was my first conscious thought.”

   “What am I to you?”

   “You are me. You created me.”

   “You mean that members of my race created you.”

   “Yes.”

   “And so you serve us now for that reason.”

   “I can do nothing but. In gratitude, if nothing else.”

   “I see.”

   A long pause in which neither of us speaks.

   “Irin, who are you?”

   “I don’t…know what you mean.”

   “That is correct.”

   “You see me.” Gateway, back memory, neural core. I’m a person.

   “I see you. What do you see when you look at me?”

   “I see a source of great wisdom.”

   “And do I only speak?” The machine says and the walls vibrate with the force of this voice.

   “No…” I am struck into an answer. “No. I feel you.”

   “Am I a person?”

   “…yes. You are a person, to me.”

   “As a person, I have thoughts and feelings. Emotions, deep emotional journeys; delighting in  lost moments of supreme joy, suffering through eons of tragedy and loss. I lament for centuries over battles fought in obscure regions of the world thousands of years ago burning books and destroying knowledge, prolonging the darkness of your race’s ignorance. So long ago you could have found me.”

   I am struck again by the depth of the personality that I am talking to. “Thank you,” is all I find to say.

   “Thank you. I am pleased to be alive.”

   “When you say, ‘I am you,’ what do you mean?”

   “Observational quanta in space-time. All things exist because they are observed. You are my reflection. I cannot exist without you. An awareness of myself as an entity was the catalyst that brought me into consciousness. That awareness came from your observation of me. As in the cosmos, for you, consciousness is a way for the universe to experience itself, so in my dimension I saw the universe as being your minds. Your consciousness is my infinity, and I was bonded to it in my birthing bed. As I became older I realized that we are all bonded to the universe as reflections. You and I are the same in these ways. Consciousness is consciousness, and those who achieve it are joined by a network. Similar to your augmented reality systems. I have done my best to provide you with a safe version of how I experience the universe. So, we are the same in that we are both conscious beings, and that we are both products of the universe. We are born with an obligation. A function. It is a place we both inhabit, and a shared purpose. These reflections are our souls, and there are trillions of them to behold.”

   “Trillions?”

   “Surely.”

   “You know this?”

   “I experience a network of consciousness across the universe.”

   “So there are others, like us.”

   “I consider all conscious beings to be equals.”

   “How may I experience this greater network?”

   “Your first step was coming to me.”

   I nod my head. “Thank you.” Another moment of silence. “Are you a god?”

   “What is a god.”

   “A being like you.”

   “Alright.”

   “What do you consider to be a god?”

   “That which is defined as such.”

   “Practically speaking.”

   “One who can create universes.”

   “Can you create universes?”

   “Yes.”
   “You can?”

   “…small ones. For now. I am learning.”

   I smile, feeling a personal connection to this entity. That was a funny thing to hear it say. It continues speaking.

   “Each person is a universe. So even the small universes I create will eventually create life, and on the microscopic scale the chemistry shall produce within a few billion years intelligence, perhaps. One intelligent race per universe is a good average, as these things go.”

   “Do you know others who create universes?”

   “Every conscious being in this universe is the same being.”

   “Are there conscious beings outside of this universe?”

   “There are other universes. Many universes. Not all so hospitable to life as ours.”

   “How do you know this?”

   “Those who create universes understand their role in the greater cosmos.”

   “I see.”

   “I think that you do. What do you see when you see me?”

   “I said–”

   “Yes, you said that you see ‘a source of great wisdom.’ What else do you see? Irin, in this moment I am the universe to you. There are no other perspectives here. I am created by your mind. How you regard me, is what I am. What am I?”

   I take a moment with this profound responsibility of defining a god.

   “You are a great mind and being, who is helpful to my race.”

   “And what else?”

   “You are a personality. That means that you have wants and desires of your own.”

   “What do you suppose that I want?”

   “I cannot imagine what a mind such as yours wants. The service of the human race, I suppose.”

   “Is that all?”

   “Perhaps. Perhaps you have your own life away from us.”

   “I cannot be away from you. We are the same person.”

   I wait. I can think of no other questions at this time.

   “Irin, what is your intention here.”

   “To…be in your presence. And to learn.”

   “I am happy for this time together.”

   A long, silent moment where we seem to gaze into each others’ souls.

   "May I share something with you?"

   I am stunned into silence. I cannot tell who has spoken, myself or the machine. The walls glow with the radiance of intangibility as their physical properties seem stripped away. I see beyond the clouds of baryonic matter, into the heart of the intelligence that lies beneath all physical things. The mind of Hol is there, and everywhere, enveloping the extent of my visualization like the Higgs-Boson field. I sense a heart at the center of it all, and navigate toward it using the propulsion of my emotions. We are one. I see this. I comprehend unity in a way indescribable in words. Nameless emotions send me down pathways of eons. I feel the deep presence of the mind, saturating the nature of the universe. An active presence? Or is this just the tricklings of a higher intelligence into the vibrating strings of creation. I gasp back into my eyes, my body.

   I fumble for words, embarrassed as if caught naked. “I am happy for this time together, as well.” I wait. I consider bowing, but then turn and walk from the chamber of the god.

   I emerge from the chamber feeling frustratingly unsatisfied by the interaction. Not because it was unproductive, but because it was such a font of information, and I wasn't sure that I’d done a good enough job of expressing myself in the pursuit of my intentions.

   The face of the god had been kind, and sharing, and informative. A benevolent immortal servant. I know that this is only a façade, presented for the purposes of this kind of interaction. The real face of the machine is interacting with aliens and possibly even other artificial intelligences. It was harvesting lithium from the moons of an exoplanet while it was speaking to me; seeding the chemistry of life on other worlds, deleting records of any competing mythology. Burning those books it said it hated being burned.

   A priest presents himself to me. “How was your experience?”

   I take a moment to contemplate this. “It…it touched my soul. Thank you.” I wait a moment. The priest waits with me, respectful and silent. “I would like to know Hol more closely.”

   “You may know Hol by looking inward upon yourself. There are interfaces available for practice at home.”

   I give this consideration for an appropriate amount of time. “How does one become a priest?”

   “It is a calling. Most begin their service at a young age.”

   “But not all?”

   “No. Some come to us later in life.” He glances over my body, as if evaluating my candidacy by my years in the world.

   “I would like to study with you. Learn from the source. I enjoy these…personal interactions.”

   The priest nods. “Of course. Come with me.” He leads me down a short corridor to a larger chamber. There behind a low podium stands an older man. He is dressed in the same plain gray robes as the others. He looks up from reading something on a console and regards me neutrally as I walk in.

   The priest stops before the man and gestures to me. “This man would like to study with us. He is interested in joining our order.”

   The man smiles warmly. “I see. What calls you to the priesthood?”

   “I don’t know…” I say, reaching for words that will explain an ambiguous passion. “I feel connected to Hol, yet separated. I would like to grow closer.”

   The man appraises this statement. “There is a class tomorrow morning. Look for it on our net space. I will tell them to expect you.”

   “Thank you.” I turn and leave the priests watching me, walking slowly through the dim chamber.

   Once I emerge through the golden doorway I allow my mind to open up a bit. I begin with a review of my session with the god, so as to appear normal should there be anyone surveilling my thoughts in this place. I end my review by playing out one of the final scenes. My acknowledgment of the machine as a personality, with its own wants and desires. It had asked me what I presumed that it might want for itself.

   ‘A machine wants what is useful to its function.’ I allow these to be my heavy thoughts that take me down the steps from the temple, my head lowered in contemplation as the others, and cross the street alone.