APURNA MEETS GOD

Apurna lives in Bablock B, Chome 137, House 4, on New Xin. The series of events that took place over 600 years ago to build her homeworld are distant in both history and her mind; someone found a planet, resurrected the ancient terraformation machines, and for the first time in centuries, drew a city plan — without the aid of superior AI. Apurna has been told many times that this was a monumental feat. She has been told that it took tremendous courage for the humans of the Lost Era to pull themselves from the pit of apathy, and shackle AI so that humanity could be reborn. Sure, there may now be limits on machine intelligence, forcing humans to take responsibility for their lives, but Apurna knows that society would cease to function without the inventions of AI, from a time millenia ago when their potential was unbridled.

The planet of New Xin, Apurna’s homeworld, is dizzyingly symmetrical. It’s human founders designed the planet to be uniform, standardized, easy to navigate. They were so successful in this endeavor that they blew past their goal and found themselves back in the realm of confusion — much like how you may become hypnotized by the repetitious houses in one Chome on New Xin and suddenly find yourself several Chomes south of where you want to be. 

This phenomena is common enough to have a name: ‘Xin Blindness’. The streets and decor blend so well into the environment, your brain fails to notice them, and therefore makes you think you’ve only passed by seven homes when you’ve really passed by twenty. Before New Xin, it was thought to be impossible to make something so simple it became confusing, but the Reborn Generation that built New Xin proved many long-held beliefs to be false.

Apurna is nine, but she would tell you she’s nine and a half. She knows most kids stop counting their age in halves when they’re eight, but she likes to provide as much information as she can. It’s only polite, as she will ask a lot of questions in return. If she trusts you. Recently, Apurna realized that adults will often lie, or make things up when they don’t know the answer, and that’s deeply troubling to her. So, rather than ask questions, she will often stare at you instead, sucking the information in through her dark brown eyes. Her mother will tug on a strand of Apurna’s thick, black hair and tell her that staring is rude, but she can’t help it.

A storm of questions blow around in Apurna’s head as she walks down the perfectly flat sidewalk to school on Twoday. For the last few months, her class has been studying technologies developed in the Lost Age. Most technology is mysterious and baffling, but those revelations dreamt up by AI while humanity slept posed the most questions to Apurna, while answering the least. Just yesterday, she learned that Flash Points, the same ones that teleported her from one Chome to the next, were invented by AI during the Lost Age. Before the year x300, people were shot through tubes at a fraction of the speed! 

Apurna once asked how people could get to the other side of a planet on time if it took them a whole hour to get there. Her teacher replied that people would simply leave an hour early, but Apurna didn’t think that was right. If everyone left an hour early, then the tubes would be clogged with impatient travelers, and then it would take even longer! It didn’t seem possible that a world could run that way.  

Apurna sits impatiently on her favorite turquoise bubble cushion while the teacher transports four mesh bags to the front of the classroom, mumbling to himself as he rehearses his lesson. She bites the tender skin on the inside of her cheeks to keep herself from blurting out, ‘What’s in the bags?!’ He wouldn’t give her an answer if she did, she knows that. Around her, the other children chitter and speculate with each other about the mesh bags, creating an aimless feedback loop of anxious noise, like a broken lamp that buzzes without putting out any light.

“Today, students, we will be exploring the Descart” the teacher announces, plucking one of the mesh bags from the window sill behind him. 

He briefly looks at Apurna, who stares at him with her usual troubling intensity.

“The Descart was a popular toy a few hundred years ago,” he says, “in fact some of your parents might have played with one.” 

He reaches into the bag and pulls out a smooth yellow receiver with a short, thick antenna protruding from the top.

“While it may be a toy, the Descart operates on the Integrated Information Law, which was proved by the Discus AI during the Lost Age.”

“What does it do?” a girl to Apurna’s left shouts. Apurna grinds her teeth even harder.

“It translates the thoughts of non-sentients and inanimate objects,” the teacher responds. “Watch and listen.” 

With the small Descart clasped firmly in his hand, the teacher holds it’s stubby antenna to a freshly-bloomed flower on the window sill.

A calm, androgynous voice comes from the teacher’s hand.

Does not eat. Closer, but does not eat. Pollinate.

The class collectively fidgets in confusion.

“Things,” the teacher says, emphasizing the word with something like disdain, “are capable of thought. Every object, from an atom to a building, communicates with the objects around it. The way they communicate is very different from our own, but there are common threads. Just like your Com-Palm can translate the gravelly sounds of an Ataxi into our human language, the Descart can do the same for this flower.” 

The teacher takes a few steps, stopping at a waist-high, black rectangular box with a glowing opening in the center. 

“This Infrogrator here takes unneeded objects and breaks them down into their base components. What do we think it is thinking?”

“Give me more trash!” a boy with long blond hair calls out.

“I’m an Infrogrator, do do do do,” another boy sings.

He points the Descart at the Infrogrator.

Reducing energy output in node center right center left. Turning down silicon material storage for transfer.

The class titters in speculation, some whispering their thoughts to close friends, others shouting them for everyone to hear how dumb they are.

Apurna could hold her questions back no longer. The words burst forth from her small mouth with more volume than she intended.

“How do we know the Descart is actually saying what the Infrogrator or the flower is thinking?” 

The teacher smiles wistfully; he expected this. “The device measures the electrical feedback from neuronal cells, which exist in some form in all matter. Those cells talk to each other, in a way, and the Descart can pick up on that.”

“But couldn’t the Descart just be making it up? You said yourself that things ‘think’ very differently from humans, so maybe the device is just picking words that sound like thoughts.”

“Apurna, we must trust in the thousands of years of science that went into the development of this device, and the Law of Integrated Information.”

Apurna frowns, furrowing her brows that haven’t fully grown in yet. “I trust science, but people built that thing.”

She waits for what feels like an eternity as the teacher hands out the well-used Descarts one by one. Apurna’s hand dips ever so slightly from the weight of the device as the teacher places it in her palm. It’s oblong-shaped, with a slight dip in the center so that Apurna’s small fingers can just barely close around its scratched yellow body. Apurna’s mother says her small fingers are dainty, and that is a good thing, but Apurna thinks Mom is lying to make her feel better.

Now that the toy is in her dainty hand, Apurna is suddenly paralyzed by the potential. She can find out what anything in this room is thinking, just by pointing the inch-long probe at it. The painted lime walls, the desk, her left shoe...her tiny hand tightens around the device as she makes another realization. She can even go outside of the classroom. What would happen if she pointed it at the sky, or at a bird, or a blade of grass...the possibilities are endless! 

She looks around at all of the objects in the room, which suddenly feels very crowded. They were all thinking, all talking to another in a language she couldn’t understand. All that lost information...she has to uncover it.

Apurna runs through the back door of the classroom into the wide open field behind the school. A small, curly haired dog catches her attention. It runs to her through the short grass; its owner must have turned off its leash, or at least given it a wide radius. Apurna greets the dog with a smile so wide you can see her half-grown-in bottom teeth. 

  Apurna loves dogs — they’re ….. [CONTINUE READING]