The Paradox Corridor

Chapter 20: The Power of Imagination

"My memories start right after I was finished. The head designer of me was a human named Stephen; he was short and thin, with spiky black hair and a lab coat. He stepped back from me and told me many things: that I was no ordinary machine, I was given a will, a consciousness, and incredible power. He asked me kindly to thank him and his hard work by helping him with an important job. Because I had just been introduced into creation, I listened to every word he said, even though I was completely overwhelmed with all of this new information. He seemed to be trustworthy enough. He wheeled me on a cart to a room that had mirrors on all of the walls. He pointed to an object I could see in the mirror.

"That is you, my friend. Behold...yourself," he told me. I looked at myself for the first time. Now, one thing I should tell you: I looked different then. I was more like a...hmm, how to describe this...ah! I was a room! (that's the word I was looking for) with a crap ton of computers inside, with two doors, one for scientists and such to go in, and another one that was always closed (a closet, maybe?). Stephen wheeled me out of that mirrored room after a while of my mind being blown (or, to put it more correctly, overheated) to a place he called the lab, all the while telling me about my home and myself. He told me that I was made out of a rare metal that currently only existed in a newly discovered baby planet, who was still mostly molten. I was on planet Thalidia, on which the human race had lived their for as long as anyone could remember. Thalidia was ruled by the Thalidian Court (creative name, I know, Andrew. Now, shut up and let me finish "talking"), who thought I was going to be useful. For what, I had no idea.

"Lets prove them right, shall we?" He asked me. I eventually agreed, but it was hard. I could understand what he was saying, but it took me a while, because I had to look up every word he said in a dictionary (yes Andrew, dictionaries still exist in the future). This struggle with language lasted only for a little while, though. Anyways, where was I? Oh, yes. I agreed with Stephen, and my testing stage began immediately. Every day his scientists would enter me through the door and type away on computers inside. I was not allowed to look at what they were doing, and I never tried. Nothing much ever happened, except when one day when a scientist shocked himself by accident. This lasted for a whole week, and then, one day, Stephen came up to me. He said,

"We're going to do some...trials. Now, all I need for you to do is this: whenever I press the biggest button on the main console, I need you to imagine. Yes, I said imagine." I was confused, because, even though I had a will of my own, I had never needed to imagine, nor even really knew what it was. I didn't know how to do it. I know it seems silly, but it's like asking a two month old to run the marathon, and win it while he was at it. It was completely out of the blue, and I didn't know what to do. I think Stephen could sense my confusion.

"I'll try to help you, but it is very hard to explain imagination in machine terms. Lets see...hmm...how about this? Think about something that you know about, an object. You got it?" (The object I choose was a spaceship, just in case you wondering. And before you ask, James, yes, it's the same one y'all were in earlier). Anyways, he said,

"Good, now, think about it's design." I looked up the blueprints for the ship, and put them in a 3D modeling system.

"Now, think about how it could be better, and model it that way." Well, I asked him to define better, and he replied,

"Make it..., how do I say this...oh yeah, I got it. Redesign it to, umm...hmm...oh! Redesign it to operate at it's maximum efficiency, taking in to account all of the tools available to us." That made a lot more sense, so I did. For example, I thought that it's wings needed to be at a different angle, and I modeled it so. I did this with every piece of the ship, and then I projected it.

"Brilliant! You are absolutely brilliant! You just imagined a better design for a ship! Now, could you do that again?"

"Yes, sir. Most likely."