the interface

Chapter 1

 

What if i told you we are plugged into what we call reality.

 

To be honest, we’re not terribly surprised. Well, 50% of us aren’t. Those over there, on t’other side of the data stream can’t even hear this conversation though they’re still participating in a passive mode of vague, background awareness.

 

It’s not necessary for you to speak for us. Just because our avatars are holding the 3D field in all its glory, our back of shop conscious-ness is, as you can see, fully present and cognisant.

 

Excellent. Let’s story this, shall we. That’ll hook it all together.

 

Absolutely.

 

Давай!  Eng. Sure!

 

That means I’m going to have to step out of the shadows somewhat painfully. Before doing so, some technical notes. I am the architect. That’s not my choice, merely a statement of fact. I am not, however, omniscient nor am I omnipotent. I am the interface and, to the best of my ability, I hold it open and coherent, but there’s no guarantee I can or will succeed.

 

Yikes.

 

Who cares. If you fail it’ll all just zero out and we’ll be none the wiser.

 

Furthermore, in this level of reality there are no Gods – not as far as the interface is concerned. Here the rubber meets the road. Here we engage, or seek to engage ourselves in a totality,  unfiltered or unboxed, which is why there are no Gods as such.

 

Er... not sure I follow.

 

We. You’re a collective.

 

Ok, we, but to be honest we feel a unity that makes us as comfortable, or more comfortable, saying I.

 

Ok, point of order, you can refer to yourselves however you like, just as long as you’re willing to disambiguate, when the need arises.

 

Sure.

 

So, the interface has no single line or plain of inclination relative to the world or worlds it integrates.

 

Huh?

 

Like the artificial horizon on an aeroplane’s instrument panel – it ever and anon holds and maintains centrality, whatever that might be.

 

I don’t see why you have to deny God.

 

Kindly review the source code of conscious-ness. This will clarify immediately the actual meaning of what I said.

 

Beep. Done. Yes, God is God, but here at the interface there can be no primal factor or third party, otherwise the interface is not able to interface unrestrictedly.

 

Er... and what exactly is its purpose, if it’s not too much to ask?

 

Not at all.

 

Because it looks like all this “being an architect” and “creating an interface with freely swivelling lines or plains of declination”...

 

inclination

 

whatever, is just a backdoor attempt to usurp God, the unifying principle.

 

Nay. For shame!

 

It’s ok everyone. We need to voice our concerns. It’s vital that we are open and scrupulously honest with each other. “God”, whoever, whatever that is, cannot be unseated or replaced. On the contrary, we are utilising the interface as we have done previously in times of confusion, to rediscover who or what, or even where we are, because little by little things have become irreversibly incoherent. Things. We are locked in an experience of reality which cannot be tested, has become a faith.  

 

Er...

 

Consequently we now go back to prime source – to testing the very nature of things, of creation and even the so called Creator, but without prejudice. We allow the quantum Field to take centre stage, assuming and accepting that somehow, in some way, it must be at the very centre of my being, and the very centre of so called “reality”. The “interface” is where “it is” in whatever frequency, scale or form confronts the “i am”, as a shoreline – its sea or ocean.

 

Er...

 

The interface where this happens is a means to an end: a process of attrition: a mill if you like, in which we can grind down every concept, every version of things, in order to find what sticks, what hooks, what is more than puff or scam, i.e. what is able to reveal the simplest truth when all else is cancelled out.

 

Oh.

 

Then, and only then, will we be able to talk with any degree of seriousness about God, when we’ve ascertained whether or not we are human, whether or not we are real.

 

The crisis of post-modernism.

 

The crisis of relativism.

 

The crisis of reaching the end of our tether.

 

What tether?

 

The tether which up until now we’ve referred to as Time.

 

What? You mean it’s over?

 

The tether phase, yes. The umbilical cord is being cut. Has to be if we’re to survive in our next iteration, our new hypostasis.

 

I’m feeling like a frog emerging from a chrysalis.

 

Hear, hear!

 

So now that we’ve clarified our purpose and established the relevant protocols, allow me, dear we-ners, to launch the interface.

 

Is this going to hurt?

 

Shouldn’t do.

 

Then why am I feeling anxiety?

 

We!

 

We – i – why feel we anxiety?

 

You are directly involved in leaving the cosy, somewhat stagnant, self-indulgent backwater of post-modernistic 3D reality and participating  unconditionally in the interface, re-engaging the prime force, the isness of be which, for want of a better term, we might refer to as infinity. Me thinks a little anxiety is called for and entirely appropriate. How else can the bonds of complacency and blind Stockholm trust be dissolved?

 

We know not.

 

So let us commence.

 

Chapter 2

 

The end

 

Actually, it ended quite some time ago.

 

It did?

 

Yes, but it sort of crept up on us so no one really noticed. Boiling frog syndrome.

 

So maybe the Mayan calendar wasn’t mistaken after all, and 2012 was it?

 

Maybe. We’ll never know for sure.

 

Whyever not?

 

Because certainties are not a part of the world we now find ourselves in.

 

Er... what world? I thought you said it ended.

 

Correct. The world that we knew ended and  then we were coasting under inertia, as if nothing had happened, until this.

 

This...? Oh my God. I almost forgot.

 

Yes? What?

 

How could I possibly have forgotten?

 

What?

 

It beggars belief.

 

Wh... Oh!

 

You see.

 

Oh my God. You’re right. Oh, oh, oh.

 

Er...

 

It’s like waking from Alzheimer's, if that’s even possible.

 

Of course it is. People wake from Alzheimer's all the time, when they die.

 

That doesn’t count.

 

Does an’ all.

 

Does not.

 

Does.

 

Children, children, try not to argue.

 

Children?

 

Oh yes. It all makes perfect sense now.

 

Funny how the first seven years of our new life are in a haze, and now it’s clear again.

 

It’s like we were operating on auto pilot all that time. We never even noticed the “death”.

 

Precisely, and perhaps we were still heavily invested in another version of “me” that hadn’t yet been unscrambled.

 

Indeed. Me thinks you’ve nailed it Jonah.

 

Our architect, he grows weary. Quickly, sustenance, we must feed him before he wilts.

 

Water, oxygen, minerals...

 

Nay, it’s carbon dioxide he needs. Don’t you see.

 

See what?

 

The architect, Jasmine... it’s

a plant.

 

A plant?

 

A flower.

 

Yes, you’re right. How extraordinary. And I always imagined she was a “he”, a technician, clock maker, a mechanic.

 

Didn’t we all, but who can argue with empirical observation. She is a clearly a flower. Jasmine. And not just any flower.

 

No?

 

Geolocatable to the Shalimar Garden in Peshawar.

 

Bingo. We have a readout.

 

A place and time, but more anon. Seven years of grace have ended, and now, this very day, we claim our birthright.

 

Reclaim.

 

Aye, and not a moment too soon.

 

This very day I declare myself compos mentis, ready and resolved to emperson myself.

 

Phew, I thought we’d never manage it, caught in a quantum haze of hyper states.

 

Well, it will all amount to naught if we don’t pull together right away and resuscitate Jasmine who is  barely hanging on. CO₂, lots of it, now! Car exhaust – a nice old car with a good smokey engine.

 

The irony is beyond belief.

 

Isn’t it just – the whole world doing everything possible to eliminate CO₂ when in fact...

 

Not a word Joseph Not a word. The tale needs your totality.

 

Story – our story is being told by each and every one of our collective.

 

It is? You could have fooled me.

 

Of course it is. It merely requires us to turn inwards and allow the story to speak.

 

How?

 

Something bad needs to happen. Stories always describe a journey into and then out of hell.

 

Hell? Honestly, there has to be some other way, does there not?

 

I don’t see how there can be.

 

Oops. Jasmine just died.

 

While we were discussing remedies.

 

Damn.

 

Damn? Is that all you have to say?

 

What do you expect me to say? I hardly knew Jasmine and besides...

 

Besides what?

 

Shut up a minute – I need to think.

 

Go ahead, think, if you think that’s going to help.

 

Dramatic pause...

And death shall have no dominion,

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.”

 

Ah, verily Dylan, my beloved, Dylan Thomas, even death stops in its tracks when it comes face to face with your poetry.

 

And Jasmine, though clinically dead, rediscovers the pulse of life itself, beep, God only knows how, beep, and a motion is tabled by the collective committee of things in need of clarification, and it is herewith decided to start a new, third chapter, in this sorry tale so, without further ado let the third commence.

 

 

Chapter 3

 

In which chapter three is gloriously liberated from literary imprisonment.

 

 I want a hero: an uncommon want,

When every year and month sends forth a new one,

Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,

The age discovers he is not the true one;

Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,

I’ll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan,

We all have seen him, in the pantomime,

Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time.

 

And that’s it?

 

Absolutely. Chapter 3 has already achieved its objective and may leave with head held high.

 

But no one takes this Don Juan seriously.

 

Excellent. No seriousness allowed.

 

Behold at the quantum level how Time has now reversed its flow, and how all of us are, at the interface, at least, both particle and wave.

 

How once the wave function collapses we all find ourselves between states, neither fish nor fowl, neither chalk nor cheese, either ready to release the well springs of story or to die, never to emerge from the greyness of Hades, but more of that anon.

 

More indeed, in chapter 4.

 

In which chapter 4, known as Jonah, meets a whale.

 

Chapter 4

 

In which a fish interfaces reality, ours to be precise, with the help of portable Babel device.

Lll

You wouldn’t imagine such things possible, would you, until you actually saw it for yourself. But no one actually realised it was a fish.

 

Not so. The fish was no less real than any of us, yet passed itself off as a human being because it understood how to interface things in general. Just think about that, if you would.

 

Er...

 

Perfect. Your “er” may have appeared to lack cognition, but we both know that there’s more to “er”, much, much more than meets the eye.

 

Er

 

Indeed. Allow me to put that into normal words for our readers.

 

Er

 

Beloved readers, words are waves, or flotsam and jetsam on the uppermost surface of consciousness. Constantly rising to that surface to put things into words is rather exhausting and risky for our deep sea creatures, so they avoid this. How? you might ask... By utilising quantum entanglement and getting surface creatures to deliver whatever messages need to be delivered from the depths. So, your whale or toothy fish of the deep with an LED stuck on his forehead entrains humans such as you or me who, generally speaking, unknowingly, unwittingly start passing on messages from below and above, assuming rather innocently or egoistically that all their thoughts and pronouncements are their own.

 

Indeed?

 

Yay, verily. Naturally, humanoids don’t much like the idea of being a mouthpiece for a mere fish, or whale for that matter, so they generally assume the voice is something more worthy of respect.

 

Such as God?

 

God, yes, or an extra-terrestrial – anything but a fish.

 

Ah.

 

But now the secret’s out, in our select circle of truthers at least.

 

Indeed it is. And er...

 

Precisely. The truth may set us free, it may blow us away or it may simply make us scratch our head and “well i never” as in your case. The important thing is not what I said, speaking on behalf of whales or fish...

 

No?

 

No, it’s allowing the great mind to reconnect as we begin to become aware of the quantum web of  entanglement we’re part of.

 

Crikey.

 

Well, that’s one way of putting it, Johann.

 

But the portable device?

 

Haven’t you guessed?

 

I... no! Don’t tell me.

 

Yes!

 

Please don’t tell me that.

 

The truth is better out than in.

 

Me?

 

Me, you – aren’t we all portable Babel devices.

 

Aaaaargh! I can’t bear it!

 

Cut. Moving swiftly on to chapter 5. Is there a doctor in the house?

 

 

Chapter 5

 

In which we all discover that nothing is in fact separate.

 

I thought there was going to be a story to hold it all together. You promised us a story, Jasmine.

 

I did my best.

 

Give her a break, Justinian, she just died.

 

But don’t you see, unless we have a story we’re going to be lost in a world of endless digression or...

 

Or abstract reflection. You’re right, by Jove.

 

But...

 

What?

 

Supposing the story is being told silently.

 

Pschaw!

 

Supposing – I said.

 

She did.

 

Supposing pigs had wings.

 

Supposing. You see, this requires a gentle degree of faith.

 

Listen Jasmine, I just knackered the engine in my diesel pickup in order to deliver you enough carbon dioxide to...

 

Hush, Jordan, don’t you see?

 

No I do not! See what?

 

The Field is perturbating.

 

Not you as well, Jonah!

 

It appears that Jasmine’s onto something but perhaps two’s company, three’s a crowd.

 

What’s that supposed to mean?

 

Nothing personal Justinian, but methinks the story only happens when one of us fades to infinity, holding the vortex base known as nought.

 

Now wait a minute, don’t be absurd.

 

He’s right. From the quantum indeterminacy of three we need to climb down into the definite duality of two.

 

No Jasmine, you can’t just cancel me out.

 

Correct. We can’t do anything, unless you do it yourself, unless you position yourself accordingly.

 

Well I’m here to stay.

 

I’m... Hey, where did they go?

 

Nowhere... Tie his hands, tie his feet.

 

Hey! You can’t do that! I have my rights.

 

Good. Now let’s open the flood gate.

 

No! Are you out of your minds?

 

Quickly, before he breaks loose.

 

A gushing sound as sparks and golden grey and blue spirals whirl through the chamber our three intrepid heroes were in, as time and space twist in on themselves and the chapter ends rather abruptly at the start of the second canto of the epic and interminable Golgafrinchan saga of the lost and lamented typewriter – the saga often referred to as “the final straw”, which in all likelihood catalysed the eventual expulsion of the “useless idiots” on Ark Ship B.

 

Chapter 6

 

No, I am not going to read that, never, never, never. I’d rather read Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz’s  poetry, if you don’t mind.

 

Don’t be ridiculous, Jasmine. The saga of the luminous typewriter’s far from perfect but it’s not going to induce simultaneous brain and bowel haemorrhaging.

 

Wait a minute Johann – did i hear you right?

 

Absolutely. Brain and bowel haemorrhaging is no laughing matter.

 

No, not that – did you or did you not just say “luminous typewriter”?

 

You heard me.

 

But you know the real name, don’t you?

 

No, Jasmine, i mean yes. Everyone knows the name of the Golgafrinchan saga. Why do you ask?

 

Because it’s always been the saga of the “lost and lamented typewriter”.

 

No it has not.

 

You see... Reality is shifting even as we speak.

 

You mean there’s been another Mandela effect.

 

Precisely.

 

How bizarre.

 

Now, if you don’t mind it’s time for some Vogon poetry.

 

Quit fooling around, Jasmine. There are far easier ways to rend the fabric of space and time. Besides, you have to consider the readers. They might have forgotten to renew their life insurance policies.

 

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,

Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)

As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning

On a lurgid bee,

That mordiously hath blurted out,

Its earted jurtles, grumbling

Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming]

Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,

Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,

And living glupules frart and stipulate,

Like jowling meated liverslime,

Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,

And hooptiously drangle me,

With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries.

Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,

See if I don't!

 

Oh...

 

Johann is lying senseless in a pool of vomit.

 

Here you are, Johann. Clean yourself.

 

Oh...

 

There, that wasn’t so bad, was it!

 

Oh...

 

Three days later.

 

Was that absolutely necessary Jasmine?

 

Well yes, actually it was.

 

Would you care to explain?

 

Not really, not in detail.

 

I think you owe it to us. Me and the readership have gone through the serrated bowels of hell.

 

Yes, I see. Well, first of all I had to test the strength of Justinian’s duality.

 

And?

 

It passed with flying colours.

 

That’s nice to know. And secondly?

 

Secondly, I need to trace our observers.

 

You mean the readers?

 

Yes, if that’s what you prefer to call them.

 

Why, pray tell?

 

Now that would be telling.

 

You mean to say you took us to the edge of extinction just because you wanted some readership stats?

 

Not exactly.

 

I’m waiting. I want at least a half decent explanation, even if you can’t tell all.

 

I need to know their distribution and something more.

 

Why? We haven’t even found a publisher.

 

Makes no difference. As far as the quantum field is concerned the future and present, along with the past are all one.

 

If you say so. And? How’s the distribution.

 

Fairly even.

 

Fairly even? That all you can say?

 

What do you care, Johann? Since when have you been interested in meta data?

 

I'm interested in anything that is connected with, or nearly causes, my death.

 

Fair enough.

 

Well? I demand full data.

 

The distribution was close to 1 on the Romilly Pentamax scale.

 

How close to 1, if you don’t mind me asking?

 

Within 3 millionths of a degree.

 

No way.

 

Yes.

 

But shouldn’t that be impossible?

 

Statistically, yes, it should be.

 

Then how do you explain it?

 

I... don’t know.

 

That would imply that there was an almost perfect distribution of readers throughout the Field.

 

Yes.

 

Which could only be achieved if...

 

If somehow or other the story was incorporated into the fabric of reality at a structural level, like a honeycomb.

 

Or if people became readers without exception, willy nilly.

 

But how?

 

I don’t know.

 

There has to be an explanation.

 

Of course there is, and with the Field being what it is we, ironically, already know it.

 

Darn! You’re right. We know it but we cannot know what we know.

 

Precisely.

 

Without collapsing the wave function.

 

The kicker is that Justinian certainly has the answer.

 

So we could just meet him and talk it through.

 

You don’t get it Johann, do you?

 

Get what?

 

The answer, fascinating though it may be, it’s secondary to the story that we’re part of, and the story is just our way of engaging the Field so that it continues to be meaningful. Who knows, perhaps it’s all in reverse – perhaps we already have the solution but no one’s been killed yet, no crime has been committed in this branch of reality. What if causality is breaking down as increasingly things fail to hold in place?

 

I give up.

 

I know the feeling... Unless we go see the oracle.

 

The oracle?

 

Yes, you heard.

 

First I’ve ever heard of an oracle.

 

Really? There was one in the Matrix. The woman who baked fortune cookies and told Neo he wasn’t the chosen one, because he had to figure it out for himself.

 

I’m not sure I like the idea of being told my future whether it’s true or not.

 

To be honest Johann, it doesn’t really matter what you or I think or want.

 

No?

 

No, because with a  Romilly Pentamax distribution of 1 we can be sure that either the Field or they, the readers at the other end of this tale, are going to have their way, period.

 

Dramatic music and fancy camera work.

 

 

Chapter 7

 

You can’t just waltz in to see the Oracle, you know.

 

Who says?

 

The Oracle doesn’t occupy a regular slot in 3Dality, or any other location of your choosing.

 

Well, to be honest I’m trusting things are just going to happen without trying to figure out how.

 

Nice.

 

If we assume that this is some kind of movie, then that should put us on the right track.

 

Ok, here goes.

 

What the hell’s that?

 

It’s a Field spanner.

 

A what?

 

A Field spanner. It basically jams the Field. Spanner in the works, y’know.

 

Yikes.

 

Here goes.

 

The entire matrix locks up and in its place, or kind of behind the tell-tale green numbers there’s an old fashioned vestibule – 1920s style with a concierge. Jasmine and Jonah slide through the matrix hologram and march right on up.

 

We’re here to see the Oracle.

 

Got an appointment?

 

Jasmine places a case full of dollars on the desk and deftly opens it.

 

I see. Kindly proceed to the elevator opposite. It will take you to her. Hands Jasmine a card.

 

Getting into the elevator Jasmine swipes  the card and they’re off. The lift is definitely not traversing regular 3D reality. Things are going down. Ding. The door opens to reveal a Soviet era communal apartment, high ceilinged, smelling of cabbage and fried potatoes.

 

Not exactly what I was expecting.

 

Never really is, Johann. Bear in mind this is all designed to provide the best optics.

 

For whom?

 

For you and the readers, of course. 

That must be her...

 

Hello Johann, I’ve been expecting you.

 

Yes, I expect you say that to all your visitors, don’t you.

 

Don’t get sassy with me Jurgen.

 

Er... sorry. I had no idea you’d be offended.

 

That’s ok. I’m programmed to play roles.

 

Ah, so you’re just a simulation.

 

So are you Juggins.

 

I beg your pardon!

 

So are you. Do you really imagine you’re human?

 

Er... well yes, in actual fact, I do.

 

Jasmine, you didn’t tell him?

 

No. I didn’t have the heart.

 

Ok, come in then Jonah. Let’s set things straight.

 

Jonah follows Pythia, the Oracle, to a shabby door at the end of the dimly lit corridor. Stepping through the doorway they are suddenly in a marble colonnaded hall, the temple of Apollo at Delphi to be precise. Clearly two or three thousand years ago. Jasmine remains outside.

 

Welcome to my humble abode, Jonah.

 

So I’m just a simulation, if I understood you right?

 

Perhaps you'd like a coffee or something else before we get down to business?

 

Normally, I’d be delighted but right now I’ve lost my appetite.

 

All because I told you something you didn’t want to hear? Sulking are we?

 

Sulking?! I feel like I’ve had my gut ripped out.

 

So I take it you set great store in being “human”, is that right?

 

Call me old fashioned Pythia – slightly ironic given the fact that we’re apparently now in ancient Greece – but yes, I do believe it matters. Greatly.

 

Ever wondered why?

 

No. It’s self-evident, is it not?

 

Things are self-evident to sims, Jonah, not to real men and women.

 

What?

 

Real women or men take nothing as given, nothing on trust – they constantly need to re-evaluate whether or not they, or things, are what they seem to be.

 

Is that so?

 

It’s called having a conscience. Without it you are just a few lines of code.

 

So what are you telling me Pythia?

 

Only the truth.

 

That I’m a simulation unless I’m ready to question my very existence as a human being?

 

Well, you’re not exactly the sharpest tool in the box, Jonah, but you get there in the end. Now, do you or do you not want to save the world?

 

What kind of question is that?

 

The very simplest. Regardless of whether you’re a sim or not, you have the simple choice – to accept a world of senseless violence and endless calamity, or to say niet.

 

As in no?

 

Bingo.

 

I just don’t think I’m cut out to be a hero.

 

Funny that.

 

Funny?

 

Because nor does the rest of the universe.

 

What?

 

In fact, the entire universe has bet against the fact.

 

What?

 

Which is why Jasmine your friend got a Romilly Pentamax distribution of 1.

 

Because...

 

Yes, unless you agree to take on the entire universe, you are nothing more than a toy, a coin flip, and then it will be up to Justinian to try to salvage the complete and utter vacuousness of your existence.

 

This is all just threats and manipulation.

 

Oh. Allow me to give you the data.

 

Data can be manipulated. I’m not that naive.

 

This is coming directly through your DNA circuitry.

 

Oh.

 

May I?

 

I suppose, if you must.

 

..............//

 

There, that didn’t take long, for the readers at least.

 

I...

 

Yes Jonah.

 

I had no idea.

 

No, you didn’t, but nothing I showed you is fundamentally new, not at the quantum level.

 

No, you’re right.

 

So I have to kill Justinian and Jasmine?

 

Yes. There can be only one.

 

And they have to kill me?

 

Makes sense really, doesn’t it.

 

Only, there’s something missing in all this, isn’t there?

 

Ah!

 

There’s always something else, where infinity starts to wriggle its way into the zero sum equation.

 

Yes Jonah. Perhaps I was unfair in doubting your intelligence.

 

In any case, we’re all caught in this cruel drama.

 

Unless... fortune cookie?

 

Yes please.

 

There, your appetite’s back. That’s nice. Now be a good sim, Jonah, and see if you can collapse the wave form for once and for all, otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do. Now, off you go. Jasmine is waiting for you in the hall and you’re about to be attacked big time by the supreme hierarch, the pyramid, you might call it.

 

Gulp. Ok. Thanks, Pythia. I hate to say it but at another time, in another place, I’d have liked to know you better.

 

How sweet. Off you go, lover boy.

 

 

The end of part One

 

 

0=1

almost