Chapter 1
Kendric looked down at his hands,
amazed at the digital perfection displayed before his eyes. Or at least what
the program made him think were his eyes. The program made everything feel and
seem so real by relying on the mind to fill in the gaps between the pixels.
This is what the software engineers told him.
His hands stretched and flexed when
he told them to. He tried to fool the program by moving each of his fingers
individually in a random pattern. Index, then middle, then middle, then pinky
etc. Faster and faster. His fingers kept up.
“Nice work.” He said out loud
thinking that the Fount operators on the other side of the program would hear
the compliment.
He looked up to find himself in a
plain white room. There were no windows, only a single white door that almost
blended into the wall. This room reminded him of an insane asylum from the holo
movies he had seen. It was too clean.
He walked to the door listening to
the echo his shoes made. They weren’t even his real shoes, but every visitor to
the Fount received simple clothing. His shirt and pants were both a simple dark
blue. No brand name items.
They were able to perfectly map the
human hand into computer code, but to program fancy or decent clothing was too
difficult for them. He laughed. Although, he never really cared about his
clothing anyway.
He pushed the door open into a
well-lit room. Suddenly noise from hundreds of people, or what his mind
interpreted as people, flooded his ears. The room was enormous, stretching
nearly four stories high with balconies on each floor. To his left there were
large glass revolving doors, identical to the front doors of the Fount Inc.
reception building in the real world.
People were everywhere. Some in
huddled groups others in circles laughing and singing and enjoying themselves.
One couple was dancing, weaving in and out of the crowd.
A woman walked through the
revolving doors and ran towards a small child in the middle of the room. The
woman swooped up the child in her arms and showered her with kisses. The child
could not have been any older than seven years old. Poor girl, the only mother
she would ever know was this computer program of her mother.
Kendric stepped away from the door
and swiftly walked to the circular desk in the middle of the room. A clerk
looked up to him with a smile.
“May I help you?” His voice was
calm. He seemed to enunciate every word perfectly.
“I’m here to see my grandfather.”
Kendric sighed.
“And his name?” Again, perfect
tone.
“Henry Georgenson.”
“Ah, one of the first to enter the
Fount. I will notify him immediately that you are here to see him.” His gaze
did not falter, nor did his expression. He was smiling and continued to stare
at Kendric. He shivered. Kendric hated it when people stared at him for no
apparent reason. Perhaps the program put a zit on his forehead that was clearly
visible to all. A practical joke created by the computer programmers.
“Thanks.” Kendric cautiously turned
away with a half smile. Strange.
“He’ll be here in five minutes.”
Kendric looked back to see the clerk in the exact same position.
Did he even move to use a phone to
notify my grandfather? Nope. He was perfect, still, unmoving, and mechanical. For
how perfect this program is, there sure seems to be a lot of little
discrepancies that make this perfect world not-so real.
Kendric waited for a minute by the
counter, but felt the clerks gaze in the back of his head so he decided to
explore the room. Walking towards the glass revolving doors he noticed the
guards. They looked more like the clerk from behind the counter, but they
didn’t smile. Each one stared off into nothingness, but seemed poised and alert
at all moments.
They stood between the people and
the doors. Probably guarding the entrance. No, they were guarding the exit,
making sure no one who did not have authorization could leave the building into
the alternate world they called the Fount. For some of the real people who were
visiting never thought that there was anything beyond those doors. Perhaps some
believed that there really was nothing beyond those doors and the program just
teleported the uploaded people into the room from their extensive databases.
Kendric was one of those people.
But then again, why would there be
guards to keep the real people from leaving?
Kendric turned away from the doors.
A large spiral staircase led up to the four balconies. No elevator was needed
because supposedly everyone in the Fount, even visitors, was portrayed as
perfectly healthy and strong. There was no need for elevators. There were
countless doors on each balcony. Each one had a number engraved above the
threshold. These rooms must be reserved for higher paying customers to have
private rooms for their reunions.
Some of these doors must also lead
to the “special” rooms. Kendric heard of some rooms that had swimming pools,
bowling alleys, tennis courts, bars, or even restaurants inside.
There was a strong attempt to make
this building feel as though it was everything that the Fount had to offer. It
was spotless, white marble columns and floors. Crystal chandeliers and bright
lights were everywhere. It looked abnormally expensive, but simple. It was, in
lack of a better word, perfect.
A man in a simple gray suit walked
past Kendric towards the reception counter. The clerk gave him the same smile,
and then pointed at Kendric. The man slowly turned around.
His hair was chestnut brown and
hung down to his shoulders in a sleek flat wave. His hairline was perfect, as
though he had never lost any hair throughout his life. He had bushy eyebrows
that overshadowed his brown eyes. He looked just like the picture Kendric’s
mother showed him several years ago. It was his grandfather when he was
twenty-five or so years old; it was Henry.
The man smirked, lifting the right
corner of his lip. He walked briskly, no, excitedly towards me with arms wide
open. Kendric was uncertain as to what he should do. He imagined seeing his grandfather
as an old frail man in a wheel chair hooked up to hundreds of wires keeping him
alive. At least that was how his mother explained what happened to his
grandfather. Now he appeared to be younger than Kendric himself. Was he
supposed to then act the older more mature part in this reunion?
“My boy!” His voice was smooth.
There was a hint of Kendric’s mother’s softness behind his voice. Unexpectedly,
Kendric longed for his mother and opened his arms to receive the embrace. They
stood for a moment in their silent hug. Kendric
noticed the smell of fresh pine needles on his grandfather’s suit jacket. The
program was impressive to distinguish between the freshness of the scent of real
pine needles and the fake car-freshener that his mom always had. The scent
brought him back to reality; it was a program and this was only the copy of his
grandfather’s brain waves. Nothing more.
“You know I have not had a visitor
in nearly twelve years.” Henry let go of Kendric and smiled. His smile was not like
that of the clerk’s perfect and unnatural smile.
“Yeah, well you know my Mom.” He
tried to laugh.
“I know her all too well.” He
paused, looking past Kendric for a second. “But you are here now, finally
coming to realize how false she was about me, no doubt?”
“She told me your were dead. Is
that not true?”
“She never told you about me being
uploaded into the Fount, did she?”
“No,” Kendric sighed.
He frowned.
“No matter, you know now that I am
alive and well here.” He took a step back and circled around in front of Kendric
with his arms outstretched.
“That depends on your definition of
alive”
“Out there I am dead. Out there my
own family has forgotten me. Out there I have ceased to exist.” He folded his
arms. “But in here I still remember my kids. In here I still remember my wife.
In here I still remember. I still think. I continue to expand my mind and
develop other talents. In here I have found a life that I wished I had had. In
here I’m more alive than I ever was out there.”
“Oh,” Kendric looked at his feet.
The idea of living on forever inside of this program was no longer just a game.
There was a deeper meaning behind the curtain of the phrase eternal life.
Henry rested his hand on Kendric’s
shoulder. “Gaw. Don’t you worry about me. I’m alright being a non-existent
entity here in this virtual matrix.” He took a breath. Kendric was sure that he
felt the air enter the man’s lungs. “Now tell me, for what reason has a fine
young man like you come to visit with a grumpy old grandpa?”
“Well. I’ve been given an offer to
work as a software engineer for Fount inc.”
“Ha! One of those computer fellas!”
He covered his mouth to laugh. “Then you
need to fix the problem with my coffee tasting the exact same every day. It
tastes like crap.”
A laugh escaped Kendric’s mouth.
Perhaps this “perfect” alternate world wasn’t too far from the real one.
They both laughed for a minute.
“Yeah, I wanted to see with my own
eyes,” he paused, “or with my mind, how this program is. How it feels, reacts,
and performs.”
“They did a pretty darn good job,
didn’t they?”
“Too good.” Henry could imagine how
the software engineers wrote the code that made up everything they saw, heard,
felt and smelt. He could see in his minds eye how simple it would be to make
everything in this world perfect. That’s what made it nowhere near
reality. “It’s too perfect. I plan to
help make it real.”
“Really? Why is that?” Henry had a
puzzled look on his face. Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to him that he misses
reality over perfection. Or maybe he doesn’t want it.
“Well to program perfection is
simple. But to program the haphazard occurrences that make up reality is a
challenge if not near impossible. My playing field.” He smiled and stuck out
his chest.
“Well, then make sure to make
coffee taste good.” He laughed again. He must have been a happy man before his
death (or before he was copied).
“Well that depends on where they
put me.” His grandfather didn’t seem to understand. “I mean that depends on
whether or not my boss lets me do personal projects for my grandpa.”
“Oh. I see.” He paused and the
smile disappeared. “So what of my daughter? Your mother I mean?”
Kendric bit his lip and turned
around. He had planned to lie. But it seemed so much easier to lie to a
computer program when he devised the plan than it did now.
“Come now, how is she? How is my
Isabel?
“I don’t know.” There was a pause.
Ten minutes must have gone by in silence. No, it was only one minute. “I ran
away when I was 15. I haven’t heard from her since.”
Kendric turned around only to see
his grandfather frown. A tear had left his right eye and left a silent trail
down his cheek. He was no longer the 25 year old young man, but there was a
wise aged look in his eyes. One he never forgot.
