The Unwritten

The Unwritten XII - The Scientists

Minister YashThiago stood in the hallway outside of the laboratory, biting his lip. He started toward the door, hesitated, and then backed away, frowning. Looking down at his feet, he took a deep breath, shook his head in recrimination at himself for hesitating, and headed through the door.

Cotanrz and Miuccia were sitting at the console. Both were eating, but working. Numbers and graphs streamed across the FluR screens giving them plenty to digest. The micron thin water based screens crisply displayed information in three dimensions, allowing gesture manipulations off the surface of the screens as well as manipulating the data by voice and eye movements. Both finally noticed the entrance of the Minister and started to get up.

“No, no, don’t get up, please.” They sat back down and looked at one another, anticipating. “We have all now met. Artelect had some interesting things to say. He may be of some service to you in this. He believes, according to your data, that we have tapped into…” He hesitated, regretting already what he was about to say.

“Yes?” Miuccia stared at him, her eyes big due to his hesitation.

“Well, it seems we’ve tapped into an alien environment beyond the one we were aiming for. It is small. Very small.”

“Yes, we’ve gathered that from,” Cotanrz nodded toward the screens, “the data.”

“Yes, of course.”

“What is it, then?” Miuccia cocked her head a bit to the side, simply curious now. This wasn’t just about them, this was also about recriminations against Science.

“Hell.”

“Excuse me?” Cotanrz looked at Miuccia. She glanced over at him, giving him credence, then looked back at the Minister.

“Hell,” she said, “Like, Hell? The traditional, archaic, fantasy beliefs related to eschatological, religious, tribal dogmas, Hell? That Hell?”

“Yes. Exactly. Of course he also pointed out this is in no way proof of anything other than the environment we have apparently tapped into.” Both nodded in agreement with the Minister.

“Of course not.” Cotanrz grinned. “That would be, ludicrous. Still, what the hell have we tapped into if it’s not the ancient Hell of legend that seems to run through the prehistoric threads of all intelligent beings?”

“Not all,” Miuccia reminded him. Just capitalistic based religions, other religions only brought hells into their belief systems when they ran into other religions in a culture clash that required compromise in order to exist in close proximity. It’s typical for that kind of reciprocity in order for trade to exist, to avoid martial resolutions to disagreements over time. It was that or kill them all.”

“Of course,” Cotanrz turned his attention to the Minister. “Well then?”

“Yes, you are welcome to consult him.” YashThiago looked around the screens. “Artelect, might we bother you for a moment?” There was nothing for a moment, then the holograph walked in through the door.

Artelect was wearing the same standard, dark colored, light reflecting Minister’s suit preferred by those types and was also easily recognizable by citizens. Except his was produced visually by the manipulation of energy fields in a familiar pattern so that only specific colors were reflected away, which nevertheless gave him the same appearance as a real minister.

This was all by design of the systems that programmed the synthetic intelligence in order to enable smoother interactions with organic beings. An attempt to merge AI with human society.

Regardless, the two seated scientists rose at Artelect’s entrance and smiled. Interacting with the AI didn’t happen very often and to be allowed to do so was a gift, a pleasure. Artelect smiled a warm smile at the attention and indicated with a hand, just as had YashThiago, not to pamper or give exception to the AI’s presence.