The Value Of Memories 22v3c

My eternal gratitude to Aurora Morales and Stuart Hanscombe for the translation into english, and Miguel Michán for the cover design. Without them, you would not be enjoying this book.

To my wife, who tolerates and s each and every single one of my ions.

The value of memories

Carlos A. Paramio Danta

Copyright Carlos A. Paramio Danta 2010-2012

Smashwords Edition

Cover: Miguel Michán

Translation to English: Aurora Morales, Stuart Hanscombe

Fecha de publicación: 25/01/2011

ISBN: 978-84-614-6869-0

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Part 1

“A day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.”

H. G. Wells, “The Discovery of the Future”

- All in all, if I had to sum up in a few words of advice what the formula for success is, I would say that you need to strive to devote a project your full attention and ion. I know that it might seems like an insubstantial little formula, but I believe that it is impossible to reach the necessary mental state to react swiftly to events if you haven’t dedicated your full time and attention. To juggle it with working commitments is very hard. Imagine the worst that could happen if you gave everything up to chase your dream. Do it, seriously. Take few minutes, pencil in hand, and be honest with yourselves. I’m sure that more often than not, the consequences are surmountable and have an easy solution. Thank you for listening.

There was an outbreak of applause. Some people from the crowd even stood up, a clear sign of enthusiasm and respect towards the speaker. In their eyes, he could perceive feelings that he vaguely ed from his past: inspiration, euphoria, ambition… Now everything was different, and he couldn’t help feeling slightly jealous. A boy in jeans and a top with the Conference Hall logo approached him, wearing an openly huge smile on his face while holding his hand out to greet him.

-It was magnificent, Jesus. It’s obvious that you have managed to get their attention. Perhaps some of them will be in the same position as you are now in few years, do you think?

-Yes, it would be nice – he answered almost automatically, while he glanced towards the back of the room. There he was, with his arms crossed, still on his chair, the person he was dying to see, the true reason why he had accepted to get out of bed so early and come all the way here-. Excuse me for a second.

Jesus had hardly walked a few steps, getting off the stage, when the man rushed to get up. He looked the same as usual, in a stone grey suit slightly creased and a two-day stubble, exactly as he ed him. Meanwhile, the applause had become silent.

-Well, well… I see you haven’t lost your appeal. Watch, the next entrepreneurs who will make us feel even older will come out of here.

- Nice to see you too, Gonzalo. Come on, come here and give me a hug.

As soon as Jesus made with him, fragments of his childhood fogged his head, as if his mere proximity was the catalysis that activates those memories. Suddenly, for only a few moments, he could see himself sitting on the porch of the beach house, saying goodbye to him the day before moving to Barcelona, after a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had arisen for his father. He hadn’t turned 12 yet, maybe 13. He could nearly hear the waves roaring in the background, salty water enraged like the tears that slid down his face.

-Hey, not so hard. Anyone would think that we haven’t seen each other for 3

years.

-And 12 weeks. Listen, shall we go? I have lots to tell you.

-But you haven’t even taken the essential stroll around! I’m sure many people can’t wait to talk to you for few minutes and bombard you with questions. Don’t worry about me; I will wait for you outside.

-Precisely. I don’t need to be burdened with questions. If we take advantage of the confusion, it will be a long time before any one realizes that I have already left.

-OK, as you wish. - Gonzalo glanced at his watch. – We could have an early dinner. I will order a taxi; the usual place?

- You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed that fettuccini.

The taxi only took only a few minutes; long enough for Gonzalo to bring him up to date on how happy he was with his new agent and how everything seemed to be working out so well lately. Judging by the low quality of Gonzalo’s suit, now that he was close enough to see it properly, Jesus wasn’t so sure. But Gonzalo never liked moaning, he always faced adversity bravely, and it could be said that he was an eminently positive man.

-Although nothing in comparison with your success. You are creating a stir! – He finished.

-You think? Well, that’s not so important any more. The taxi approached them and the driver beeped slightly.

-But what the hell is going on with you? Don’t tell me that you are still depressed about…

-Come on, jump in. I will explain now. To Regueros street, please – Jesus hastily told the taxi driver while he sat down in the back with his friend.

The taxi drove off quickly. In less than 5 minutes he had managed to leave the building and escape. What a record, he thought. Gonzalo was wondering if that discourtesy would eventually come at a high price.

-Let me tell you that you have many reasons to be happy. I am quite sure that with only last year’s dividends from “myhumanguide.com” you’ve got enough to retire all together, although that’s impossible for you. Furthermore, I can see that you are a lot thinner than last time; I bet you have been plotting something for a while and you haven’t told me.

It had been 6 years since “myhumanguide.com” came out on the market as a revolutionary augmented reality application. While Jesus was visiting Kyoto in an attempt to run away from his own thoughts, he realized that he had forgotten to call a girl, recommended by a friend, to guide him around the city. Probably his subconscious had played a dirty trick on him, he thought then. Anyway, he got his mobile out and started looking for Internet pages with map information on where to find the most interesting touristic attractions.

The guide, the pages and pages of information in his mobile… suddenly everything fell into place. What if, using modern mobile phone capabilities, I developed software that showed images on the screen from the captured picture on the camera, but showing an interactive guide that provides an explanation on what you are seeing on that image? That way it would appear as if an interactive guide was right there, wherever you were looking at through your phone. The warmth of a human image and voice instead of cold and extensive data pages most probably would be pleasant and would positively enhance the experience. He imagined that, for example, the virtual guide was pointing at one of the temples’ roofs while he explained the ins and outs of Japanese constructions, and then it encouraged the traveler to enter the temple and enjoy the gold sculpture of Amida that is hidden inside. Or that, in the middle of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, walking towards the Columbia glacier tongue near Banff, our peculiar pocket companion would point out the way ahead, where the glacier died decades ago, a clear example of the global warming, whatever the causes.

Yes, that made a lot of sense to him. At the end of the day, a modern phone had all the necessary hardware: cameras, GPS, gyroscope and Internet connection. Putting all that together in a genius way was enough for the gadget to know where the individual who was holding it was pointing at, thanks to the gyroscope, and with the GPS it could find out the point in the planet where it was located. The only thing missing now was combining the captured camera image with the virtual guide ed from the Internet.

It had huge potential. Soon it became popular among travelers that preferred to enjoy a complete lack of plans and discover interesting places on the go. With the first capital injection he decided that it was the time to make a self-contained device as cheap as possible for those people that did not own a smart phone. Museums around the world got hold of a considerable amount of them from the first batch, substituting the obsolete audio guides. A service was added where local experts recorded their own explanations about a topic that they knew in depth and received commissions for each viewing. Monuments, bars, historical buildings, trekking routes… For several years, hundreds of interesting facts about nearly every nook and cranny in the world were compiled. Due to its low

cost if became very popular, and in the last year it reached a multimillionbusiness volume. By then, even important agreements were made with telecommunication operators around the world to provide permanent Internet access for the application at a fix cost, regardless of where the person using it was, becoming the most popular travel assistant on the entire planet, and improving the traveling experience for millions of people with their own travel arrangements.

-What I’m going to explain to you is much more exciting that all that, my dear friend. When it seemed that I was surrounded by darkness, someone came to me to light a candle of hope.

-Stop your cheap similes and tell me something that is worth it, you are keeping me on tenterhooks.

-You were right about me being depressed. Or at least I was. And it’s not only to do with Lucia, although as I have told you many times I don’t think I will ever get over it. When death arrives so unexpectedly, it’s impossible to be ready.

-I know, you can talk to me about it whenever you feel like it; you know that. I could never imagine how you feel, but you know that I will always be there for you when you need to let things off your chest.

-Thank you, Gonzalo. – The taxi was leaving the final stretch of “la Castellana”, entering “el Paseo Recoletos”. Left behind was the façade of the Wax Museum, hiding the secrets that its interior boasts. It seemed to him little less than ironic to think in the figures of historical characters, real and fictitious, that waited unscathed by the age of time with the help of slight maintenance work. Perhaps that would be an excellent start for the story he was about to tell his good friend. – Anyway, that was not the main cause of my depression; it was

only one of the ingredients.

Jesus’ mobile phone started playing an epic fragment of “Thus spoke Zarathustra” by Strauss. Swiftly, he took it out of his jacket inside pocket.

-Good evening, Margarita… Yes… I understand… Very well, let them know that I will be on my way early tomorrow morning. I still need to take care of a matter… Did you prepare what I asked for? Brilliant, thank you very much, Margarita. Ah! Listen, I don’t think I have ever told you how efficient you are, I appreciate you calling me so late… I know, but even then, I am really grateful. Well, see you soon.

-You are behaving very strangely; you are scaring me.

-Look, we are nearly there. Let’s go and sit down at our favourite table and you will get the answers to your questions.

As Jesus got out of the taxi, with his wallet still in his hand, he went towards the restaurant door and looked inside. As expected, it was completely empty. It was still early, and that was great, they could choose a table. He approached the waiter, and asked for a table for two, at the back, far away from the toilets and the kitchen doors, far enough to be able to have a private conversation. Without even sitting down or looking at the wine list, he ordered an “Ornellaia”, a vintage wine from Toscana, and two glasses. He took his jacket off, and waited patiently for Gonzalo to get comfortable at the table. Gonzalo stared at him, without saying a word, while he crossed his fingers underneath his chin, waiting for the mystery to be finally unveiled. Jesus enjoyed these short tense moments. He caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of the waiter getting closer to the table with a bottle, and waited until he was close enough but not able to hear what he was going to say, and there was no time for a reaction from Gonzalo.

-I’ve got pancreatic cancer with metastasis to the liver and stomach. I’ve been told that I have a couple of months left, maybe less.

Gonzalo’s jaw went loose, and he felt his fingers slip. He needs to rest them on the table quickly to keep his balance. The waiter is now next to them, showing Jesus the bottle, and after his gesture of approval, he pours part of the glass. Jesus raises the crystal so the ruby liquid hides his friend’s face, somehow deformed and dyed in red against the light. He sips hard, savours the astringent taste of the tannins, and lets it warm up his throat.

-Delicious. Please serve it.

The waiter fills up the glasses calmly, in what seems like years to Gonzalo. As soon as he leaves, he raises his glass and downs the wine in one go. Jesus grins. He dries his mouth, and places the glass back on the coloured circular stain it had left on the tablecloth.

-But…! How can you just drop this news like that! Oh my God, Jesus… How long have you known this for?

-For a little more than three months.

-And you are telling me now? Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you found out?

-I told you I was depressed. I wasn’t over Lucia’s death, and all of a sudden I learnt this news. I’m very sorry, but I didn’t fancy seeing anyone. I had had stomachache for several days; I had a scan… And it was found.

-Can it be treated?

He smiled again.

-I’m afraid not, my friend. Only a handful of pancreatic cancer cases like this can be operated, and it becomes impossible if it has extended to other organs. Nothing can be done.

For a few seconds there was an uncomfortable silence. Gonzalo lowered his head while closing his eyes tightly, trying to contain the strong emotions that were surfacing.

-Does it hurt? – He said, while getting up.

-Not too much, at least not at the moment. Although there are periods where I’m quite screwed.

-I don’t understand… How can you be smiling? Why do you say that you are not depressed anymore? You’ve never been a believer, so you can’t comfort yourself with the idea of being reunited with Lucia or something similar. Explain it to me, because I truly don’t understand anything.

-Well, Gonzalo. I’m happy because I’m hoping I will get cured.

-But aren’t you saying that it’s untreatable?

-And it isn’t. At least not with todays technology.

-Well I don’t understand anything – he denied, while rubbing his head with his hand.

-Look, I suppose that you’ve heard about cryogenics.

Gonzalo couldn’t hold back a small laugh.

-I assume that you are not being serious.

-Totally. Several companies that carry out the process exist already. Most of them just freeze the subject’s entire body at temperatures below 5 degrees kelvin, or only the head, after death. However, I consider that action quite useless, since by then, the person who is to be cryogenized has practically ceased to exist, as the death of brain cells will be such that hardly anything useful could be recovered. No, that’s not very useful. It’s much more effective to carry out the process while the subject is alive, first expose it to a severe hibernation phase and after that to proceed to the cryogenization quickly.

-Alive? Alive! Are you telling me that you are thinking of turning yourself into an ice cube when you haven’t even died? That can’t even be legal!

-You are right; it’s not legal… in Spain. This process can be considered euthanasia, after all it produces the subject’s death, maybe permanently; and at least in my case, it would be duly justified. In Japan, for example, euthanasia is legal, although hardly practiced. And in Holland, Sweden, Ireland…

-But how could you want to bet the last days of your life on such an improbable future? What motivations could men from coming centuries have to recover you, even if it was possible? Furthermore, as things stand at the moment, we cannot even be sure that there is a far and prosperous future for mankind. It’s too risky!

-You are right. And what’s more, the process doesn’t lack technical difficulties, which possible solutions are at the moment unimaginable. For example, water in the organism, that as you know constitutes a considerable part of it, forms small ice crystals at those temperatures that can break through the membranes of the cells containing them, and as a result it would be difficult to survive once the decryogenization process begins. The entropy of the human body increases during the process, so everything would have to be put back into place.

Gonzalo was shaking his head from side to side in a disapproving sign. He couldn’t believe his ears. His friend must be extremely brave, or extremely stupid.

-Look, I’m going to be very clear: I don’t know if you are waiting for my approval or what, for something so atrocious. But certainly I’m not going to give it to you. I’m not willing to lose you like that, in what could be the last months

that we could enjoy each other’s company. Now I even regret that it’s been so long since I last saw you. Definitely, if your idea was to sell me on the issue, you are not being very convincing.

Jesus seemed to show indifference to those words, ignoring his friend for a moment while he reached to grab the menu. He opened it imively, and he pretended to scan it, since he already knew what he was going to order. And the subject, strangely, was making him hungry.

-Have you got any idea of how painful this illness can be, Gonzalo? - He said without looking away from the menu.

There was no answer.

-You see; it is simple. I don’t want to go through that bitter suffering, or to live my last days bedridden in hospital while I’m dying inside. Nor do I have family with whom to get the most out of my last days. I only have you, but I don’t intend to complicate your life for months. With this in mind, tell me, wouldn’t you bet on the possibility of prolonging your life, no matter how small it was? Besides, I’m extremely curious to know what will happen to humanity in few years. If the circumstances are present and a solution to bring me back to life is found, I will be able to satisfy my curiosity. I’m not afraid of death, as you know very well. I will play my last card. And don’t worry, I’m not asking for your permission, tomorrow I’m travelling to Amsterdam to start the procedure.

A mixture of feelings flooded Gonzalo’s mind, with such an intensity that it hardly allowed him to think clearly. He wanted to rationalize the issue, turn it into a mere mathematical game where there is a unique exact solution resulting from the logical sequence of variables that Jesus had tried to explain. But he found it impossible to deal with the empathy, anger, understanding, hope,

uneasiness and helplessness that, in unison, seemed to fight in the pursuit of a justification that satisfied his spirit.

-Furthermore, it’s in your interest that I make this decision, believe me, since I have instructed Margarita to prepare the documents for the sale of practically all my shares. And you will be the buyer, at a symbolic price of 1 Euro each. For less than 1,000 Euros you will become the majority shareholder of my company.

-What? – He answered nearly yelling.

The waiter approached the table. Jesus quickly ordered for them both: Two fettuccini with Roquefort sauce, Parmesan cheese and the house garlic bread.

-Yes, I asked Margarita to draw up the contract on the transfer of the shares, and a short while ago she confirmed that she had sent it to me via email. I have spoken to a friend who is a notary in Madrid and he will meet us tonight to attest the signatures. We only need to pop into his office, print and sign it. It has to be tonight, since tomorrow it could be too late for me, of course. - He laughed heartily.

Part 2

For we are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering to the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.

Carl Sagan, “Cosmos”

Colourful dances seemed to be swaying to the rhythm of an almost quenched soft murmur whose structure was similar to pink noise. That’s all his senses were capturing. Stress still seized his thoughts, a product of the fear he couldn’t help feeling in the last few seconds. – Is it going to hurt? – He fleetingly thought then. – I hope it’s quick. - Drowsiness governed his physic. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet, neither he could open his eyes, which shortly before one of the operators had closed.

Almost as an answer to his question, he felt an acute and unbearable pain crossing each particle of his being. Luckily, it was momentary, almost a sigh. For a brief instant, it seemed to him that all his senses had switched off all of a sudden. He wished with all his heart that something similar would not happen again. He had believed he would become unconscious much earlier. Damn, at this moment he would prefer that the operation got aborted.

He recovered hearing, or at least part of it. This time the noise seemed to be following another pattern. What seemed to be a sound at a higher volume began to stand out from the rest, but it didn’t feel familiar. It sounded at irregular intervals and he was not able to locate its position. In fact, now he felt completely disorientated, and every attempt of moving any part of his body resulted in failure. He could not even feel it.

The sound fell silent for a long time. He tried to organize his thoughts, but everything was too confusing. The storm had broken out in his mind, and each instant he surprised himself ing who he was and where he currently was. He noticed that, regardless the tremendous confusion, he did not feel any pain in his head. He often suffered from migraines in his life, he was sure he could distinguished them as soon as they started. But this time, and apart from the recent tormenting episode, no pain had manifested to stay. Everything was similar to the disorientation suffered when you wake up from a dream and you cannot anything at all about it.

Once again the loud sound. This time he could hear it more clearly. – It seems someone’s voice -, he thought. – It’s like it flowed from behind a thick cork wall.

-Jesus… - inaudible – can you hear…?

Without a doubt someone was calling him by his name. He tried to answer, but he couldn’t feel his tongue or the air in his lungs.

-…ait for me to adjust the freq… - most of it was unintelligible.

The cloud in this mind seemed to be lifting, and little by little was giving way to

lucidity. Could there have been problems during the cryogenization phase? Certainly, very little time had ed. The voice wasn’t familiar at all; it didn’t seem to be from any of the people who had accompanied him to the ward. It was a woman’s voice, probably young. Her voice sounded enormously sensual.

-Now better? Can you hear me, Jesus? – It sounded nearly as clear as when you hear a person talking face to face to you. It had a strange accent that he was not able to determine.

Anxiety was gripping him. How was he going to answer, if he couldn’t make a single word or gesture? Then he realized something that had past unnoticed to him: He couldn’t see anything at all. In fact, he couldn’t even perceive the characteristic black background with soft lights that you normally see with closed eyes, due to the sensitization of the retina’s cones upon being stimulated with the image of the eyelid’s interior, through which environmental light should get filtered. He did not know how to explain it, but he didn’t receive any visual stimulus at all. He couldn’t see in any particular colour, simply he lost sight all together. He asked himself if that’s what a completely blind person feels. If someone asked him to describe it, he would be incapable of doing so. The only thing that it occurred to him was to reply with another question. “What colour is infrared? How would you describe ultraviolet?” he said to himself.

-Ok, I can see that you can hear me now. I imagine that you must find it very frustrating to want to answer me and not be able to, but don’t worry, I understand. Of course, I need to ask you to carry on trying to talk, since I need some more samples to be able to activate a voice synthesizer consistent with your way of thinking in your speech. I’m going to have to ask you to try to pronounce some words. Are you ready?

Jesus did not understand anything. Who was that person? What was that voice synthesizer all about? Nobody explained to him that they would communicate with him through a gadget. Wasn’t it supposed that they would simply

cryogenize him and that was it? This must be a joke.

-Ok, I will suppose you are – the girl continued. - We are going to start with something basic. Can you repeat: “My name is Jesus Blanco”?

The sentence resounded in his head. "Blanco”, he wished he could at least perceive the colour “white”. He found this entire situation very frustrating. No one had prepared him for this.

-I see that you are still brooding, but I’m afraid that we will not get anywhere like this. We are not yet capable of reading your thoughts, so I would please ask you to concentrate in trying to pronounce the words that I have mentioned. Just concentrate in saying them, don’t think about anything else. Like when you move an arm that you feel has gone dead. Listen to your own voice in your head.

Jesus resigned himself, and tried to do as the invisible voice told him. He attempted to make words come out of his mouth, although he didn’t receive any physical stimulation. He mentally imagined that he pronounced them with clarity.

-Fantastic! Ok, I can go with that. And now say: “The grass is green”.

Again he did as the voice told him, without any apparent outcome.

-Wow! That was very good, excellent. I see that this is easy for you. This way it won’t be too hard for you, as we still have another 2,998 sentences to go. Ha!

2,998 sentences? But what’s the point in that? He only wanted to know what was going on outside.

-Eh! You are restless, aren’t you? I can see it in the monitor. I suppose that you are wondering what all this is about. It would be difficult for me to explain it now, but I must tell you that it’s necessary that you follow my instructions to be able to communicate. If we don’t follow this process correctly, I won’t be able to make you talk again. So I ask of you a little bit of trust and try to do as I say. Ok? You are doing very well. Now concentrate on this, and I promise that when we finish we will be able to talk about anything that you want, and I will clarify any doubts that could be torturing you. It is going to be tiring for us both, but if we dedicate an average of 10 seconds on each phrase, the complete process will take us a little more than 8 hours. Well then, we will have time to rest afterwards, won’t we?

He resigned himself, and decided to give a vote of confidence to the overwhelming voice that was spreading hope.

That strange game seemed to drag forever. From now and then, his orator – whose name he did not even know - encouraged him, indicating how many sentences they had already done and how few were left to finish. She seemed to be happy with the results. During most of the process, taking advantage of some tiny spare moments, Jesus tried to carry on gesticulating with any of the parts of his body, but he continued to feel nothing, not even pins and needles. Surprisingly, during one of those occasions that little voice sounded disapproving:

-Come on Jesus, stop trying to move. that I’m watching you. We must finish adjusting your speech. Later on we will take care of everything else.

After what seemed to be the longest hours of his existence, they finished the last sentence. Curiosity was eating him inside.

-Congratulations. That was the last one. Give me few seconds and we’ll carry out the first test.

He realized, that all this time, he was only capable of hearing the girl’s voice. There was no background noise. Nothing else was distinguishable. Not even his breath, or the one from his mysterious companion, who must have been really still in her post since she didn’t make a noise at all.

-And… action! Wasn’t that what people used to say? Ha ha – she laughed. – Let’s see, try to say something, anything.

-Like what? – Jesus thought, exhausted.

-Oops, wait; I haven’t activated the retro feed. Now, try again

-How long is this going to…? – He suddenly went silent. He heard it! He perceived his own voice. Although it sounded a bit strange, possibly because of the bad state of his throat and vocal cords.

-You see? That’s better. Now we can talk.

-Madam, Is this me? I mean, is this my voice? Christ, I can hardly recognize myself. How come I still cannot feel anything? I cannot even feel my breath coming out of my mouth. In fact, I cannot even feel my mouth!

-Ok, let’s see, we’ll go slowly. Firstly, I want to welcome you. My name is Annette Vogel. You are in complex C “wakening” ward of Transhumanity 2. It has been exactly… - brief pause of complete silence - …1,312 years since the cryogenitazion of Jesus Blanco’s body.

Oh my God! Was that possible? He was sure that only a few hours had elapsed since he had settled down on the stretcher, and they inserted that bloodline. They intended to make his blood recirculate through the machine that would induce hypothermia before the last step of cryogenization, a sort of state of suspended animation that facilitated the process. Shortly after that, he only ed disorientation, that momentary pain, and the appearance of his new companion’s voice. Would it be reasonable to think that it was all a farce? He couldn’t imagine it possible, since a priori, he couldn’t think of any motive.

-Madam, Is it true that it has been so long? – said Jesus serenely, trying to remain calm. – For me it was just the blink of an eye.

-Of course. You need to think that all your brain activity has been completely paralyzed for all these years. Time is molded according to the way we perceive it. And its perception can be compressed or stretched depending on how the speed of your thoughts’ transmission varies in their vital : your brain. It’s like we forward a 24 frames per second movie at only 12 frames per second: the movie would take exactly twice as long. In your case, we have separated your last thought before your activity stopped, from the first one after the activity recovery, for a lapse of 1,312 years.

-So, madam, you have been capable of recovering me. Incredible! How have you solved the problem of disorder and cellular destruction caused by the cryogenization? And talking about that… madam, why have you referred to my body in third-person? And why I cannot see anything?

-Yes, I suppose you have many questions. I see you are very perceptive. Please, don’t be so formal, in my native language we are more colloquial and I find it difficult to follow. I will start answering your last question. The issue with the body recovery has been one of the greatest technical difficulties that we have suffered during the last years. After many failed attempts, we realized that it would probably be a hopeless effort, since the amount of damage produced to the organic matter makes it impossible to bring back life successfully. We lost many bodies during the experiments, we are sure some of them must have suffered beyond description. You can regard yourself fortunate to be here talking to me right now, having hardly noticed the jump. In the end, and thanks to the enormous advances in the study of the brain’s functions and simulations, we had the idea of tackling the problem from another perspective: What about if instead of recovering the physical body, we use some of the simulators, and copy the body’s brain structure?

She paused briefly. Jesus was on the point of intervening, but Annette’s words stopped him.

-The problem was almost as complex as the first one, but this time it looked likely that a feasible solution could be found. Luckily, the people who decided to crygenize you thought that it would be a good idea to provide all sorts of additional data about how your brain functions. That way, we were able to access truly useful information. A good example is the dozens electroencephalograms, that allow us to create a whole cartography of the brain activity to a diversity of stimulus. Furthermore, they provided video and audio images, samples of smell and taste, and even several solid objects with different textures, that triggered

those stimulus ed in the tests, plus the construction plans of the audio and video reproduction machines in case we didn’t know how to read the stored data. With all this cluster of data, we were able to correctly interpret the results.

-Yes, I that I wondered if all those tests would be really useful. They just explained that, although they could not be sure of its usefulness, there would be no harm in providing as much information as was humanly possible with the technology available then.

-Well, they were right, otherwise most probably we wouldn’t have been able to have this conversation. The configuration of the various synapses between neurons is specific to each individual. Moreover, the way in which we the data that our senses provide, and the way we order them in thoughts, very much depends on that structure, which constantly changes, severing old connections and creating new ones. It depends a lot on the different experiences that each individual had lived previously. For example, if I pronounced the word “tree”, you will probably be creating in your head an image and stimulus that are completely different to the ones that I would create in mine when thinking about that same concept, and would probably look like some tree that we have unconsciously chosen as a model and we would have contemplated at some point in our life. As a result it is necessary to also study the shape of the brain structure, the hardware in which the software is executed, since only the combination of both allow us discover the whole cognitive process. The software is provided by the electroencephalograms and the hardware by the computerized axial tomographies, which are also included. Although I must say that we had to repeat the latter with other current techniques in order to get a greater resolution. Nonetheless, the original tomographies allowed us to compare our results with the original data, something necessary since the neurons where highly damaged after the freezing process, and despite the level of detail we can achieve today, sometimes it was hard to understand the previous distribution of certain cell groups. Anyway, it was surprising to learn that our cognitive system is quite tolerant to physical faults, and small differences here and there wouldn’t cause a notable difference to the behavior that defines us. Excuse me, I’m beating around the bush: Thanks to all those models, to our better understanding of the thought functioning, to the increase of computing capacity, and to the addition of

own models from people of our time, we have been capable of simulating a good part of your encephalic mass with fairly acceptable results.

-Then… Let me see if I understand… are you telling me that I am the result of a computer program execution?

-More or less, but that should make you happy. The machines that the simulation are significantly more complex than what you would call a computer. We use millions of tiny processing units, each one of them much simpler than the microprocessor of your time. Today’s computing power rests in the possibility of combining them in several ways. Our brains work in a similar way: Imagine, approximately a billion cells make it up, of which at least a ten percent are nerve cells capable of carrying out up to 20,000 different connections with the rest. The number of possible combinations is bigger than the number of atoms in the Universe.

-But I’m not this. I’m no Jesus Blanco anymore. I’m only a program that is executed in a machine – he said in a certain tone of rebelliousness, incapable of accepting the reality presented to him.

-Is there any difference? In practice, we are no more than organic electrochemical machines, and our world is reduced to what we can perceive of the reality thanks to our senses, actually, what we can infer from such stimulus. If you call the body that housed all that information Jesus Blanco, then yes, you could consider yourself as a new individual. But your thoughts wouldn’t differ much to the ones the original individual would carry out, including your memories.

Memories. It’s true; it wasn’t difficult to some of the events that most defined his life. He saw himself with Lucia and his friend Gonzalo, laughing

during an intimate dinner in a pretty restaurant in Cadiz facing the promenade. Some nearby swimmers were enjoying the privacy of the night in a rough sea, and they joked about the possibility of jumping in after dinner too. A couple of glasses of wine later and they made their jokes a reality as they finished the day with their clothes soaking wet in the salty water, and huge smiles on their faces.

-Tell me, Annette. How is it that you speak my language perfectly? I find it difficult to believe that Spanish is the official language of your time, especially without any noticeable variation.

-Good question. Do you all the initial process that we carried out after you woke up, when you repeated those sentences? During that process, I was calibrating the simulator in order to be able to stimulate your virtual brain by means of similar impulses to the ones you would receive if you heard my voice. Because of course, you don’t have ears any more. As I was telling you before, each individual interprets data in a different way, it is necessary to carry out this calibration process to be able to understand how you do it, so it seems to you that you are hearing my voice. In reality, a complex simultaneous translation system turns my real voice and my words into a new computer simulated sound wave that would be similar to the pronunciation of those same words in your language. This same system is used to turn your attempts to talk into the sound that you would experience if you had really pronounced those words, again converted first from my language. Although of course, the voices are never the same as the originals, and that’s why you hear yourself in a tone that you don’t recognize. Most probably you also hear my voice very differently to how it is in reality.

-Interesting. Is that why I cannot hear anything else apart from our voices?

-Exactly, that’s why you don’t hear any background noise, although we could add another wave, made up of all the sounds in this room, to the one you currently receive, we would have to extract my real voice from the rest,

otherwise it would most probably be very confusing to you. As if two people talked in unison, one in your language and one in another language that would sound like gibberish to you.

-Could you at least add some other background sound? I find this deathly silence very uncomfortable.

-Yes, of course. If you want, I will add an ambient sound. What about the sound of countryside, with a stream and some birds singing in the background? I’m sure that will help you relax a little.

Before he had the chance to answer, he began to hear what seemed a small swallow singing, the gurgling of water weaving between rocks somewhere far away, the wind shaking the leaves from the tree tops situated above him.

-Impressive. It’s like I was there myself. I would say that the fidelity is much better than the one produced by a good pair of earphones.

-Of course. It’s an exact model of the stimulus that feeds a persons brain in that environment, modified and adapted to your thought function.

-Can you also make me see something?

-There was no answer. Jesus started to imagine that it wouldn’t be pleasant.

-I’m very sorry; the image interpretation mechanism is something that is still out of our reach. If I could activate it right now, you would only have disorderly stimulus, shadows of images in black and white that would lead to more confusion than benefit. It’s one of the reasons why we are still experimenting.

Jesus understood perfectly the brief explanation; although he wished he could see that world he was part of now. He wanted to explore it so badly! His fear had almost disappeared completely, and now he only felt an enormous curiosity. He wished he could see the person he was having such an interesting conversation with.

-Tell me, how is the world now? How well have we progressed?

He heard Annette sighing.

-Phew. To be honest, it hasn’t been easy at all. In a way, we could say that we are very lucky we are still here. In general, we have greatly progressed in almost every field of knowledge. For what I from history lessons, in your time you faced an imminent energy crisis caused by a great dependency on fossil fuels. These became alarmingly scarce, and of course they couldn’t recover at the same pace as they were being depleted, since as we all know, thousands or even millions of years are necessary for their new formation. Luckily, little by little and probably due to necessity, we started to use other sources of energy more… permanent. Advances in the development of special materials for capturing the energy radiated by the sun in heat form were very important. In a way we were capable of building a material called “black hole”, capable of capturing 99% of the visible light spectrum, and therefore a high percentage of the energy coming from the sun. Gigantic solar fields were created in low fertile soil, and even in floating platforms. Several advances in the construction of fuel cells allowed us to store all that energy efficiently for future consumption. We also diminished the amount of energy necessary to carry out many industrial processes, and even household consumption. And in time, the steady reduction

of our dependency on fossil fuels even helped to slow down global warming, although this continued with a gradual increase of temperature over a long period. However all this took decades, with several international conflicts in between. Although none of those problems could be compared to the demographic drawback.

-What do you mean?

-In your time humanity was already made up of nearly 7 billion beings, and serious problems existed to provide a decent standard of living to all. The need for resources to feed and offer an opportunity to such an enormous population shot up to the point where it was feared that such unsustainable growth would end up in catastrophe. But it was never addressed, as expected. The human being acted as any other irrational animal would, fuelled by the search of their own individual benefit: Simply enjoyed their comfortable life while they could. In the classic “the ant and the grasshopper” fable, mankind behaved as the grasshopper.

-What happened?

-Well, in the year 2,082 mankind had already reached 11 billion, but more than half were living in conditions unsuitable for human life. Potable water resources were the scarcest, but no new developments on agriculture techniques, not even with the help of resistant and fertile transgenic, were enough to supply food to so many people. Let alone production or hunting or fishing. Citizens of the different nations ended up forgetting their peace treaties, driven by necessity, and there were grotesque and long wars for livelihood. These armed conflicts, decentralized, today regarded as a whole as the Third World War, were the worst human kind have ever known. But thanks to them, thinking about it objectively, humanity was reduced to around 2 billion people, which allowed a starting point from where our own sustainability was possible. Since then, a law for the contention of the world’s population exists, and today express approval from a government body is needed to be able to conceive a new life.

-Do you have children? – Jesus enquired.

-No, unfortunately I am committed to my work, and I cannot manage to find time to build a stable relationship. Anyway, I don’t think it will be possible to have them at this stage. Permits are usually granted to couples that have been living together for longer than 5 years, and generally young, between 20 and 30. And I’m nearly outside of that range already.

A thought was going round in Jesus’ artificial mind during Annette’s explanation. As soon as she finished, he took the opportunity to mention his doubt.

-There is something that I don’t understand. Don’t get me wrong, now that I understand my situation I’m delighted to be back to life, although it’s quite different to what I had imagined. But here is my doubt. If you have sought such severe measures to control the population, why is it that you are reviving people like me now? Probably I’m going to find it hard to adapt to your current society; at least it will be more difficult than for someone who had been living in it from the beginning of their life. What interest can you have in me? – He ed those same words from his friend Gonzalo’s lips, in that Italian restaurant, in what it had only been one day ago for him.

-I didn’t expect it to reach this point so soon. – She sighed deeply. - You see, I’m afraid that you are making a mistake by thinking that the purpose of this experiment is to bring you back to life now, providing you with certain autonomy so you can develop in our company. No, it’s something more complicated than that.

A sudden fear beset Jesus’ thoughts, he had started to think that his new life wasn’t going to be as great as he had begun to imagine. He chose to be cryogenized with the only goal of being able to be brought back to life, somehow, in the future. Could it be that a different destiny had been chosen for him?

-What… do you mean exactly? You are frightening me.

-You see, Jesus. In all these years we have realized more than ever that humanity is really fragile. Not that you didn’t know that, it’s that nobody had dedicated enough time to this idea as a collective, and definitely there were few people who tried to find a solution to the problem. To occupy Earth is a privilege, a gift that chance has granted us for a limited time. Anytime that same chance can act against us, and finish our existence as easily as other life forms disappeared in the past.

-And what’s that to do with me?

- Therefore you are a sample of what the future for humanity could be, only that. As far as we know, and although we can imagine other forms of life in other worlds, we are the only reliable evidence of the conscience awakening, of being able to reason and realize their own existence, and be awed at the world that surrounds them to the point of wanting to learn its origin. We have been lucky or unlucky that matter has organized itself in this point of the Universe in a certain way to create life; and that after the slow but steady evolution process by means of natural selection, gave rise to the human being, as I’ve mentioned an animal aware of itself, with a high learning and reasoning capacity, capable of modifying its surroundings in order to progress as species. We have the duty to preserve that extraordinary knowledge, to perpetuate the species beyond the imaginable limits. But if we stay here, exclusively on Earth, in the world that saw our births, the survival probabilities of a planetary catastrophe would be quite low.

-And what do you suggest as an alternative? Other world colonization?

-It is a possibility, but it’s more complex than it seems. In the past many attempts have been made to create small self-sufficient ecosystems, with the goal of studying the viability of closed biospheres, so that in the future we would be able to use that knowledge in the terraforming of some other peaceful world. In your time, more or less, a project called Biosphere 2 existed with that intention, although many complications came up. In later attempts problems have always appeared that were not easy to solve. It seems that maintaining a closed ecosystem is much more difficult than anticipated, since they are extremely vulnerable. That’s without considering that we would still have to find other worlds to carry out the experiment, since the ones that we know and are feasibly close are not very appropriate for that. No, the solution that we are looking for is much simpler than all that. It’s time that we try other alternatives.

She paused for a long time. Jesus knew that she would continue with her explanation, so he waited patiently, while he let his imagination run.

-In Transhumanity 2 we are betting to rid the project of its greatest weakness: Human body fragility. Our final intention is to develop some sort of autonomic spatial vehicle, which would house a better version of this same simulating system where you are right now. We would provide the machine with solar autonomy, taking advantage of the development of the efficient use of this rich and lasting energy source, and we would place it on the solar orbit provisionally. Since our sun still has few billion years of life, these thinking forms could enjoy something quite similar to eternal life, especially when compared to the life expectancy of human beings on Earth.

-Eternal life? You mean eternal martyrdom! – Panic got hold of Jesus; it was

interesting to feel emotions like that one without an accompanying physiological response, such as the feeling of goose bumps. – I cannot imagine what a torture it would be to remain closed in a system from which you cannot get out, or disconnect at your will. Billions of years are a long time for a human mind.

-Don’t be alarmed yet; it’s something that we are honing. We are aware that solitude for a prolonged period of time can cause serious psychological problems. That’s why we are thinking of several solutions, like communicating these small satellites with each other, or maybe to store a few minds in the same vehicle with several simulators interconnected. In both cases, it would be possible to stream stimulus from one being to another, so they can speak, feel … that kind of thing. Maybe we will even solve the problem of the visual memory stimulation, and we will be able to build a whole simulated world. Imagine, being able to enjoy a similar existence to what you’ve lived until now, free from disease, pain, sacrifice, the constant fight for natural resources, and with all the time in the world ahead of you! We have created our own eternal life elixir. We will send these vehicles around the known Universe, as many as we can, and we will be able to defeat the enormous distances that separate us from other possible life forms. Furthermore, the existence of those other life forms could be limited in time, to a period of maybe a few tens of thousands of years, as ours would be, should a catastrophe arise had it not been for projects like this one. So in this way we will maximize the possibilities of meeting them in time and space. We will store as much human knowledge as possible in such satellites, and they will be able to know us, and even talk to us, if they manage to learn our language, or we manage to learn theirs. We will show them where our world is situated, in case, maybe, we still exist as organic beings, and they can come to find us. And all in all, we will solve some of the great enigmas that have always haunted us, despite that for some of them, by mere mathematical probability, we are still guessing the answers. Are we or are we not alone in the Universe? What other life forms are possible? Where do our limits end?

Annette’s explanations and enthusiasm calmed Jesus, and soon he got intoxicated with her enthusiasm. All that seemed fascinating to him. Could it be possible that he was one of the chosen ones for such an incredible feat?

-Wouldn’t we be subject to the same fragility in space? At the end of the day, there are many dangers out there.

-Yes, there are. But we would be much safer, and at least, more dispersed, so it would be more difficult to become totally extinguished after a catastrophe of gigantic proportions. In space, matter doesn’t degrade in the same way as on Earth. We will add several levels of redundancy for each subsystem, in order to diminish the probability of losing a machine due to technical malfunction. And we will launch thousands, millions of these vehicles, in every possible direction, in search of a less pessimistic future.

-What role am I playing in all this, at this point of your investigation? – Jesus enquired.

-You see, this experiment is one of many other tests that we have been carrying out until now. In particular, you are experiment number 58. – Her voice started to sound much more serious. – My task with you consists of checking that the simulator responds as we expected it to at this point, of gathering more data and samples about your thinking model, and especially, of checking whether the simulation works in a totally deterministic way.

-What do you mean exactly?

-At this point I can be completely honest with you. We have ed all this conversation, so every time I have spoken, in precisely those moments where I’ve done it, the stimulus that have been sent to your simulator have been stored. In few minutes, I will have to reset you, take you back to the original state in which you were configured, and reproduce those stimuli again, in the right order

and instants, at least until some different reaction to the ones you have had so far to them happens. This will help us determine whether the simulated human mind will behave or not in the same way on the basis of the same data entry, or if on the other hand some factor exists, maybe due to the lack of precision when the delicate components were built, that slightly varies the chain of thoughts. This way, we could try to know beforehand the consequences of certain mental processes, and avoid or vary those that could be harmful for the happiness of the individual enclosed in the simulator.

-Are you going to disconnect me? – Jesus shouted. – No, please, don’t do it. I’m not ready.

-I’m sorry, Jesus, but all this is for a common good. I know that it sounds selfish, but try to think that your role in this experiment is possibly vital for the future of mankind. Anyway, you will come back soon, and you won’t anything.

-No! The conscience that you will awake is not me, it’s only a coarse copy of myself, of a past me. We are the accumulation of our own memories, and you are going to snatch them from me!

-I’m really sorry, Jesus. But it’s not up to me. I’m afraid that I need to proceed now, as I don’t like to see the way you are torturing yourself. We will see each other very soon.

-Wait! - Jesus shouted with all his might.

Colourful dances seemed to be swaying to the rhythm of an almost quenched soft murmur whose structure was similar to pink noise…