However as years went by, innovative methods were developed and the long term effects were studied. Towards the middle of the 21st century, the new technology became reliable, most of all mature for large scale employment.
But humanity was not ready yet. Were these methods really safe? Besides, what to cure? Only the most serious illnesses, or also others? But why not go beyond, holding the reins of evolution, in order to improve the species? At that point, how to manage the transition? Above all, should human nature be modified? What are the limits that should not be exceeded? Will man be in a position to guide his evolution, or does he risk self-destruction, instead?
A slow but profound process started, which involved politicians and journalists, religious leaders and philosophers, scientists, managers and ordinary people in heated debates regularly amplified by the media. A process with dark moments, when it resulted in public disorder and terrorist outrages. On their side, the institutions strove to guide the confused series of events, promulgating laws and sentences often invalidated by prejudices or affected by the mood of the moment, but also precise and cautious rules, which made an important contribution to progress.
The genetic engineering had an extraordinary potential. Genetic defects could be eradicated from the human race all in one go, but it also produced an evolutionary change of the species like that achieved by nature over millions of years. It could be extended to a lot of people, maybe to the whole population, producing jobs, a great deal of money and even an economic boom.
The doubters could be reassured with adequate guarantees. As for the opponents, global competition and market laws would be sufficient, rewarding the brave but also relegating the reluctant ones.
Industry sponsored the new technology, assuming it to be a farsighted policy. It invested huge sums in research, supported a cautious but constant progress and put security among its priorities. It lavished information on public opinion and institutions, showing both rigor and competence. It supported the setting up of policy committees, accepted the institution of control commissions and created powerful lobbies.
Initially the project concentrated on the most serious genetic defects. However, as reassuring results were arriving and consent was increasing, it was widened to other objectives. This process came to an end many years later, in 2134, when the principle that all the citizens were entitled to genetic improvements, was inserted into the Constitution. Since then the modifications, considered mankind’s heritage, have been extended to the whole population.
Arthur Barnard, 2298, “The new species”.
SYDNEY
@
Victoria meets a friend of hers, whom she hadn’t seen for a while.
“I have always regretted having left the world of living people,” says Megan. “So I have hired a gynoid (*) with brown hair and opal green eyes. Like then…”
Victoria gives a start. She has only a hazy recollection of the physical world. When her accident happened, she was in her teens. And for the meetings with her parents and James, she has always resorted to the virtual reality. A nice substitute, according to the experts. But what could she really feel eating a sandwich, drinking a milk and coffee, diving into the blankets of a warm bed, walking barefoot on a lawn, on a sunny day?
“I enjoyed myself as once before,” continues her friend with a sly look. “Here is what happened...”
Little by little Victoria’s face lightens. Her eyes focused on Megan, she absorbs every word, starts at every surprise. At the end, she smiles with an amused air.
When her friend has left, she drops onto a sofa, bows her head and connects to Net. She enters a travel agency, reaches the android department. She asks for a catalog and leafs through it.
There is a section for children, another for young and middle-aged people. Androids with the looks of actors and historical figures are available. Clothes and equipment are extras. Here and there special offers show up.
She concentrates on a dark-haired girl with violet eyes. The package consists of a twenty four hour stay in Sydney, the gynoid’s town. Dress and accessories included. A special discount for the next weekend.
She pays with a credit card.
In the following days she reads up on Sydney and programs her stay in every detail.
But she doesn’t inform James.
She wants to feel free.
She will follow her instinct.
Canceling remorse.
Perhaps she will do things she can’t imagine.
But she can’t draw back: growth is painful, sometimes.
Sydney, Earth.
The great day, at last. On awaking, a smiling technician invites her to get out of bed. Victoria is somewhat awkward, but with the help of a nurse, she gets up and reaches a mirror. She is wearing a white blouse, striped trousers and trainers, just what she ordered.
She walks into the bathroom and embellishes her lips with ruby. She goes to the reception to withdraw a rucksack with a change of clothes. She puts on her blue spectacles, puts on a flowered headscarf and makes for the foyer. The porter wishes her a nice stay. The main door opens. But after a few steps, Victoria freezes. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. Then she runs downstairs.
A blinding brightness. A warm breeze. Streets crowded with people of all ages. The loudspeakers spread cheerful music. She reaches a beach crammed with bathers, rents a deckchair, lies down and closes her eyes.
The same warmth she felt when still a child, she was playing with the sand on the sea front. The rhythmic lapping of the waves. She orders an iced drink and sips it, enjoying the mint flavor.
She begins walking again, along the seafront, up to a building with immense white sails. Inside, an organ with long brass pipes, the biggest in the world. She continues visiting all morning. At lunch time, Victoria buys a sandwich from a peddler and enters a park. She enjoys her snack on a bench. Cooked ham in thick slices. Crisp salad. Slightly acid tomatoes.
In the shade of a lime tree, she stares at centuries old trees, some of them populated by huge bats, others with long sharp leaves, like prehistoric plants. She listens to the croaking coming from a lawn. In the background, oddly shaped skyscrapers with wide reflecting windows soar into the sky.
She steps into an English style quarter: two rows of red brick terraced houses. A group of young people is chatting in a pub and nearby a collector displays books (**). It is the first time she has run into these rare relics of the past. Victoria takes down a volume from a shelf and while she is leafing through it, the shopkeeper approaches handing her a specimen, worn out by time. “Look at this. A rarity.”
The girl takes it in her hands. She gazes at its leather cover, then slides her finger over the cracked surface. She turns over the pages gently. The thick rough paper gives off a moldy smell, the ink forms yellowed halos around the characters.
Images from a distant world: eighteenth century ladies and gentlemen, lace dresses, wigs, velvets. The street lighting diverts her. Victoria returns the book and starts walking again.
A little crowd is gathered about a show of sounds and lights. A girl is dancing to the rhythm of drums, while drawing bright shapes with torches. The audience claps.
Half an hour later, she arrives in front of a neo-Gothic church overlooking a square. The floodlit sandstone curls and spires stand out clearly against the black sky. She lowers her glance towards the crowd at the entrance. They are young and wear yellow, red, green clothes, some of them even provocative.
(*) Android with feminine features.
(**) After three thousand years, they disappeared in the first decades of the 21st century, replaced first by electronic books and later on by systems able to take the image to the brain through the optic nerve. Even if infinitely less powerful than what modern technology offers, although they contain negligible amounts of information with respect to all the human knowledge that nowadays can be consulted simply by thought, they have been of fundamental importance for the development of civilization.
/> A FASHIONABLE PLACE
The Cathedral, the heart of the town night life. Inside, discotheques and places dedicated to virtual reality. Victoria passes a girl with handsome features busy distributing advertisements.
She plunges into the main nave, a bare and austere space, made even more striking by the lengthened ribs which expand the space and by the kaleidoscope of lights that filters through the stained glass windows.
“It’s your turn.”
Behind the desk, a girl with an olive complexion, all dressed in blue, is pointing at a list. “You can choose among these shows, or…” She leans out, stretching her arm towards a small door. “Stepping into that maze, you can see the exhibitions on the way. You will have plenty of surprises.”
“The labyrinth!” says Victoria.
After the registration, she passes two smiling girls, one of them in an electric green body stocking, the other in a lemon dress, and walks into a corridor that widens at intervals, but in others narrows leaving space only for a single person. Every now and then she peeps, through the slits in the walls, into the adjacent corridors.
“What a bore!” she grumbles shortly after.
She thinks of leaving, when a shrill voice calls her: “Hello there!”
Victoria turns. No one.
“I’m here!” insists the voice.
An arm appears through a slit. She approaches and has a look inside. From an adjacent corridor, a girl is waving to her. “Hurry up! The show is about to begin. Go straight to the end, then turn left.”
Victoria reaches a room with blue walls. The other girl runs up to her. “My name is Nicole.”
Fair-haired, just over twenty, with a latex see-through bikini. She says she is a university student and comes to this place occasionally.
Victoria looks around. “A show here? But this room is empty!”
“Be patient.”
“What’s it about?”
The other shrugs her shoulders.
The neural chip takes possession of their minds.
Now they are in the middle of a laboratory in which paint jars, brushes and palettes, jugs and other pieces of pottery are scattered. On one side, iron wires, tins and cartons. The walls are covered with paintings.
“Hey, you two!” From a corner a stocky man with bulging eyes approaches them. He has a paint stained jacket and his beret at a rakish angle. In his hands, a piece of cardboard.
“Are you a painter?” asks Victoria.
He smiles with satisfaction. “I am also a poet.” (*)
Once upon a time works of art transmitted their messages through one sense at a time, seldom more. Thus a painting affected sight, a statue could be admired and touched, a poem attracted not only for its content, but also for its sound. A perfume enraptured through its fragrance and masterpieces of cuisine delighted for their taste and refined presentation. But the author, with the few available means, had to limit himself to the simplest expression forms.
This lack of communication lasted for millennia, until the 21st century, when, thanks to virtual reality, works began to interest all senses simultaneously. It was only the beginning.
Less than a century later, the installation of a neural chip in the brain made it possible to access the mind directly, completely excluding sensory communication. The inability to share one’s own world belonged to the past.
Art was undermined, died and rose again. Today an artistic work is formed by programs able to excite sensations and emotions. It is interactive, so that it is completed only through contact with the user. The expressions are emblematic of this change: in the past the masterpieces were admired, heard and sometimes touched, today they are simply lived. The artist usually inserts into his work a kind of genius, usually with his own appearance, who drives the user through the experience.
“What’s your name, Sir?” asks Nicole.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you before,” answers the other handing a visiting card.
“Pablo Diego José Santiago de Paula Juan... Trinidad Ruiz Picasso.” The girl raises her eyes. “What a long name!”
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 (**). 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.
“All that I did is only the first step of a long journey,” (*) explains 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,” (*) 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 trea
ds 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.
(*) Phrases attributed to P.Picasso.
(**) The Kiss, 1925.
NIGHTMARE
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!”