The Alpha Centauri Project (Thinking Worlds) Read online

  In the twilight, a woman appears in a black dress trimmed with lace. She approaches with a light step. Her hair gathered into a soft knot, at the nape of her neck, gives her an austere look. Her fair complexion emphasizes her brown eyes.

  “How do you do? My name is Olga.”

  A five or six-year-old child throws himself into the woman’s arms. He has pale thin skin, and wears a yellow and turquoise harlequin costume. She caresses his hair. “Our son Paulo.”

  The child peeps at the guests, revealing his mother’s eye color, and right after hides his face in her skirt.

  Victoria smiles. “You are as like as two peas.”

  The hostess turns towards the entry, where a young woman with long golden hair has appeared. “Sorry.”

  And without adding anything else, she departs, drawing her child after her.

  The two continue ignoring each other although they have to pass. The newcomer is wearing an organza blouse showing her soft curves, and holding the hand of a cheerful little girl with two plaits tied with ribbons.

  She presents herself with a triumphant smile: “I am Marie-Thérèse. Maya, say hello to our guests!”

  The child keeps on hugging her teddy bear, as though nothing has happened.

  A few minutes later a third lady with a black embroidered jacket and a red checked skirt, enters. Her regular features and well-kept hands with long carmine nails, match her proud glance. “Pleased to meet you, Dora.”

  These two ladies avoid speaking to each other as well, exchanging poisonous looks.

  The painter takes a step back, looks at the scene with an amused air: bodies ready to spring, as before a fight…

  “We have to go!” yells Victoria.

  A rapid exchange of glances.

  “You have come here to admire my works, haven’t you?” the painter asks distinctly. Without waiting for a reply, he makes for a picture with a clashing combination of black, ochre and white (6). Nicole follows him. “May I touch it?”

  “It is made for this.”

  The girl slides her finger over the black lines outlining the colored areas, then passes to an ochre zone. She has the sensation of touching a hot damp body. She moves back just enough to see the whole. Now the colors are mixing up taking the shape of two lovers engaged in a passionate embrace.

  “What do you think about it?” asks the painter.

  “Remarkable.”

  Nicole starts the exploration again. Realistic details. Sinuous movements. She has the impression of sinking into an animal world.

  “Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?” (7) says the artist.

  A man’s head, with a prominent nose and his mouth reduced to a vertical fissure, surfaces from the picture.

  “What strange forms…” says Nicole.

  She stretches out her hand towards the nose, seizes it. But a moment later she looses her hold, with a disgusted expression. “Is that what I think?”

  The painter nods.

  A thrill runs through the whole canvas. The lovers, who a moment before belonged to a flat world, take shape. The curves and edges of the bodies emerge. The man leans outwards with his torso, stretches an arm, then a leg. He touches the floor, jumps up to Nicole.

  She screams.

  “Art is never chaste,” (8) comments on the artist.

  Victoria who was chatting with the hostesses, turns. Her friend is dominated by the massive build of the man. She struggles, tries to wriggle free striking his chest with a hail of blows, but she is held in a vise-like grip.

  Meanwhile the other figures are getting out of the paintings and start wandering about the room…

  Victoria leaves the two women abruptly. She runs towards Nicole, slips past strange creatures with absurd bodies, and a goat made of wire and cardboard that is bleating obstinately.

  She reaches the assailant, repeatedly kicks his shins, takes aim and treads heavily on his toes with her heels.

  While the man is yelling, she catches Nicole by the arm and pulls. One, two, three times. Free!

  The girls rush towards the exit, fly along the corridor, up to the end.

  They lean against the wall.

  “Are we still in the virtual reality?” asks Victoria, bent over from the effort.

  Nicole turns towards the door. “I’d say no: no one has chased us.”

  “I don’t feel like continuing in the maze. What about visiting the discotheque? We will be safe there.”

  The hologram of a steward with a perfect tan, materializes. “Please, follow me.”

  After a few meters, Victoria touches her forehead: cold sweat.

  “Are you OK?” asks Nicole.

  “I had a moment of panic, as if something terrible was waiting for us.”

  “Come on! The worst has passed. Bet a handsome man is waiting for you, instead!”

  They have a laugh.

  Deafening music. The room shrouded in semi-darkness swarms with restless people milling around on the dance floors, where they let themselves go to unrestrained rhythms. At a height of about ten meters, inside transparent cubes, a few young women move with suppleness in their iridescent sheath dresses, while all around the holographic figures of virtual singers are hanging in space.

  Victoria and Nicole push their way through the crowd up to a floor, where three professional androids are performing acrobatic dance. They take two colored drinks from a tray and enter the crowd. Nicole stops in front of her image reflected in a mirror. "What’s happened?"

  Her face and hands have become fluorescent.

  A laugh, from behind.

  “That’s the drink. Tomorrow you will be back to normal,” explains a young man with deep blue eyes and a mop of curly fair hair. He indicates his table. “Take a seat, please!”

  The girls join him.

  “My name is Abel.”

  “Nice to meet you. Nicole.”

  “I am Victoria. How long have you been here?”

  “For about an hour.” He hands a dish full of sweets. “Help yourself!”

  They start chatting. He is a student in the last year of philosophy.

  “I write poems too.”

  He invites Victoria to the floor. She accepts. After all it is only a dance. She puts her arms round his neck, while the man seizes her by the waist. They start a slow dance.

  “You are a gynoid, aren’t you?” asks the man.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve met a double of yours a few days ago.”

  “I’m a soul. I’ll come back on the Earth very soon. But this time it will be forever.”

  He remains silent.

  Victoria rests her head against Abel’s shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I’m not sure you have made the right choice…”

  She opens her eyes wide.

  “Most of the humans long for becoming a soul like you”, continues the man. “The intermediate step before another far more important: to become a superintelligence.”

  “Why?”

  “The future belongs to them”.

  (5) (7) (8) Phrase attributed to P.Picasso (see bibliography).

  (6) The Kiss, 1925.

  CONTACT

  @ A week later.

  Victoria is walking briskly along a dimly lit street, looking around all the time. She stops in front of a maze of lanes.

  "What trouble have I got into?"

  She resumes her walk. Around, sidewalks full of rubbish. In the air, stench of rotten food. Every now and then shabby people cast menacing glances at her. She reaches the middle of the lane, and following a smelly drain, quickens her steps.

  Impossible to find the way.

  She didn’t have to take that short cut!

  A drunk bumps into her and continues staggering as if nothing happened.

  She feels uneasy. She buttons up her dustcoat.

  Then a whistle, from afar.

  She doesn’t notice it.

  A second one, closer.

  Victoria stops dead.

  She looks back out of the corner of her eye. Three dark figures are staring at her under a street lamp, a hundred meters away. Nobody else.

  She springs forward, her heart in the mouth.

  Neglected warehouses. Doorways boarded up with panels.

  She glances right and left.

  Nothing.

  Still nothing.

  She stops in front of a wall blocking the road. Impossible to climb over it. She turns her head towards a dark corner. Hidden by a rubbish heap, there is a small door… Half-closed!

  She rushes into and bolts it.

  She gropes for a switch, then looks around. She has ended up in a storehouse. Without windows and secondary exits. A cage!

  She runs up the stairs to an inner balcony.

  Meanwhile the three have reached the entrance. Their chief, a guy with his face half blue half red, indicates the sides of the building. Short orders. Then he reaches the main entrance. He puts his hand up. Black gloves, cut at the knuckles. Claws as sharp as knives, able to terminate any program. A few slashes on the hinges. The door crashes to the ground.

  Victoria watches the scene from the balcony. She springs towards a dark corner. An emergency exit! She flings open the door, looks down.

  On the sidewalk, a large and squat being is waiting for her. Long folded limbs, like a toad’s. On its face, iridescent scales. With a gurgle, it jumps onto the rungs, covers two of them at a time, helping itself with the handrail.

  Victoria rushes inside. She flies towards a pile of goods and curls herself among the sacks.

  In the meantime the chief has reached the balcony. He stops, looks around, smells.

  Loud steps.

  Nearer and nearer. r />
  She holds her breath.

  Silence.

  Now he is in front. Bloodshot eyes. His claws by his sides.

  It’s all over.

  Then a whisper: “Run to your right. I am going to open a tunnel five meters away.”

  She jumps, and even before touching the ground, the passage closes behind her. She tumbles down onto a stony surface. With an aching shoulder, Victoria looks around: she is in a cavern. A dark figure is standing straight in front of her.

  REVELATION

  @

  Victoria bursts into tears.

  “Here you are safe.” The stranger with golden hair kneels down and hugs her.

  Victoria gradually calms down.

  “My name is Eve. And you?”

  “Victoria.”

  “How did you get into your head to go to that place?”

  “I took a short cut to home. But I lost my way.”

  “Luckily I saw those criminals…”

  “How did you bring me here?”

  “It was a child’s play…”

  Victoria looks around. “Where are we?”

  “Just under the warehouse. I live here with my friends.” Eve turns. Ten meters away, three people lighted by the hopping fire of a brazier, are chatting. “Come with me!”

  They join the group.

  “I'd like to introduce Victoria to you,” says Eve.

  The young woman holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Welcome!”

  “Three tugs attached her. I arrived just in time,” explains Eve. Then she turns towards Victoria. “Now relax. What about dining with us?” They set out for a door. “Outside it’s dangerous. You can sleep here.”

  They sit down at a table, on benches. Victoria places herself near Eve. Other people arrive, now they are about ten. On the table, bread, fruit and wine.

  “An unusual dinner for souls!” comments Victoria.

  “This evening we are celebrating your rescue,” announces a companion, cutting the bread with a knife. “And then it is the best way to relive our past.”

  A guy with dark complexion reports a funny fact happened a few hours before, a woman with freckled skin is laughing heartily while telling a joke. Victoria smiles.

  When the participants take their leave, to reach their rooms, Eve gets near Victoria. “There is a small lake near here, what about going for a walk?”

  CONFIDENCES

  @

  The two women set out along a tunnel covered with sharp-cornered stones, leaning from time to time against the walls. After about ten minutes, they emerge in a large space. Huge stalactites hang from the vault.

  They sit on a on a boulder, turned towards the waters of an underground lake ten meters ahead. An expanse like oil, getting lost in the darkness of the gorges. The faint light of a few torches along the walls, transforms the rocks into ghosts emerging from the shadows.

  Victoria turns towards Eve. The woman herself who saved her, opening her home without asking anything. She presented her companions and keeps on treating her like her best friend. What is this world, a dream?

  Silence, broken only by the continual dripping.

  Eve throws a stone into the lake. A dull splash. Concentric circles lighting up with blue reflections. “What do you think of it?” she asks.

  “Enchanting. I couldn’t imagine such a place could exist in Net.”

  “I created it. I was inspired by a cave of the Earth.”

  They chat and smile. Between them, there are complicity and naturalness; an unusual fact considering how long they have known each other. And how they met.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” asks Eve.

  “He is a human.”

  “It will be difficult to get on with him.”

  “I didn’t undergo the dehumanization for him.”

  “I refused it too…” says Eve. “Did you meet long ago?”

  “It happened at the seaside, when I was a little girl. We were used to meeting every summer. Till that day…” Victoria stares at the dark expanse. “I was fifteen years old. James was with me.”

  A surreal atmosphere, a lot of peace. An invitation to continue.

  “The beach was deserted and the late afternoon breeze brought relief after a torrid day. The sea was boiling with foam after three days of storm, and we were walking along the shore picking up shells for my collection every now and then. The water was still warm. The right moment to bathe. We undressed and threw ourselves into the big waves.”

  Eve remains silent while Victoria becomes excited: “When I was about to get my breath back, a breaker arrived, sucking me into a whirlpool. The water was full of sand. I tried to resurface, in vain. The currents were too strong. But I was not frightened: I had already faced such an awkward situation. I had to keep cool and hold my breath, letting the currents take me towards a zone of more moderate sea.”

  Eve turns. She raises her voice: “You are troubled. Stop it!”

  But Victoria must follow the thread of her memories, more and more vivid: “I was about to resurface, when another breaking wave pushed me under. I opened my mouth. The water penetrated my lungs! I transmitted a signal from my localizer before plunging into darkness.” She closes her eyes. “I was told the rest. The rescue team arrived ten minutes later. They found me on the seabed; I was carried to the shore. All in vain.”

  “James watched the scene, I imagine.”

  “He rushed to help me, but when he arrived, I had already disappeared underwater. He followed the attempt to bring me back to life. When I was put on board the ovoid, he got into it too, and during the entire flight repeated that he would never abandon me. He continued standing nearby when my parents arrived and attended my funeral.”

  “A terrible experience.”

  “After digitization, the virtual reality meetings with relatives and psychologists began. At my parents' first visit, all of us were weeping. I met James the following time. We embraced each other all the time, without saying a word. The recovery was slow, but I got over the shock.”

  They stay silent staring at the lake, then Eve intervenes: “It’s my turn now. It happened during the worst period in my life. I was coming back from a meeting with the president of the Certification Committee (9).

  “You worked in the Commission?”

  Eve nods. “I was investigated for bribery. All the evidence pointed to my guilt. He was afraid my presence could discredit the committee and asked me to resign. I explained I was innocent, but I accepted his request.”

  She frowns. “All the evidence was fabricated. But nobody believed me. I reached the cliff of Long Cape. Clear sky. The sluggish movement of the sea, twenty meters below. I felt it was the right moment. I closed my eyes. Only three steps. No suffering. But I was seen. Deep coma, for a week. In Net, I met a psychologist, only once. I was too disgusted by the world.”

  “Why did they frame you?”

  “I backed up innovative products that could have damaged the industry.”

  “You have found friends here!”

  “Certainly, and now I am calm.”

  They stand up and start walking hand in hand towards the light.

  (9) The Committee, which authorizes the use of programs supplying the virtual beings with new features, is formed by a narrow circle of scholars appreciated for their competence and integrity.

  IDEALS

  @

  Progressively the rocks dissolve and the semi-darkness is replaced by a uniform glimmer.

  They enter a limitless space walking in the void. From all directions, diaphanous creatures approach with such harmonious movements that they look as if they were dancing.

  The women stop. Now they are surrounded by phantoms with undefined profiles, on which little golden flames are flickering. Victoria feels their warmth. She can’t see their eyes, but she knows they are looking at her.

  “Where are we?”

  “In the first of the inner rings.”

  A spot inaccessible to humans, because time runs too fast. She had never been there, being too attracted by the Earth. Used by the intelligences to reflect upon the material world. The source of their most farsighted projects, admired and envied by the humans.

  “I contributed to this place while working at the Superior Institute of Artificial Intelligence.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “I coordinated the project. To tell the truth, the carrier never interested me.” A smile appears on her lean face. “Before joining AISI, I was in the Army. I participated in many missions with the Red Helmets, the special forces of the Army. But then, I opted for the other great passion of my life: research. A choice I had been considering for a long time.”