by Gadi Migdal
“I’m definitely happy to hear that, Taige,” laughed the doctor. “Does that mean that I’ve earned a conversation with Professor Byron?”
“Of course, the next time he wakes up.”
“Wonderful, now tell me, what did you all wish to speak to me about?”
The dolphin floated silently in the dark water, “Doctor, do you know that on Neifar nobody dreams?”
“Absolutely, you amazing creature. It’s not surprising given the rigid rules they have there.”
“Indeed. But Doctor, did you know that not one of them wants to or has even tried dreaming? Not even when they’re far away from their home world?”
The old man raised an eyebrow and scanned the city people standing around him, “Really? You have no desire to try the machines?”
Guy shrugged his shoulders, “We tried them once to understand why everyone is addicted to it. We made sure to dismantle them afterward to prevent the possibility that someone be tempted to use them again.”
The brain nodded his head, “Too bad that not everyone has your willpower. Alright, Taige, so what does that prove?”
“Critical mass, Doctor. It proves that a sufficient concentration of people can counter the effect of the subconscious transmission.”
“What transmission? I thought that you had let go of that idea that we brains are trying to transmit a subconscious order to humans to dream.”
“Yes doctor. It’s not you transmitting the order. Humans are doing that themselves.”
“Who? Who’s doing that?” Guy interrupted the conversation excitedly. “Which world is the transmission coming from?”
“From all of them, sir. All humans are transmitting it.”
“Everyone?” Guy repeated, perplexed.
The dolphin nodded, waving all eight of his arms to emphasize the point, “Yes sir, the transmission doesn’t come from a secret satellite system. It’s coming from the collective subconscious of all human beings.”
“What did you say?” Guy was amazed.
“I said that the subconscious message to dream is coming from the subconscious of all of the humans in the galaxy.”
“Subconscious of all humans? How?”
“Because they are all connected, sir. All humans are connected as one enormous brain. One intelligent entity, spread across hundreds of worlds.”
The city people and the brain looked at the dolphin in stunned silence.
The Whole was agitated. Its mood radiated through to the cluster members. Nola felt the Singa’s cluster members’ confusion. The feeling threatened to overwhelm her, and she transmitted an order to calm down and go on with their tasks. All over Neifar, puzzled coordinators calmed their frightened cluster members. It helped. The Whole calmed down and began to consider the options.
The elderly brain recovered first. “Taige, are you actually claiming that there is a collective intelligence of all of the humans in the galaxy?”
“Yes, Doctor Reuben.”
“And what are you basing this on?”
Taige glanced at Nola before replying, “I think that all human beings that have been exposed to entanglement transmissions can develop the ability to transmit on their own, without any need of a satellite array.”
“People can transmit messages without a satellite system? Give me a second,” the brain suddenly requested. The projection flickered and froze. Nola’s heart raced with panic as she observed the dolphin. Pleading with him wordlessly. The existence of the Whole had to remain a secret.
The old man’s image unfroze, “Unbelievable. You really are a masterpiece, Taige. I discussed this with some of my colleagues in the fields of physics and brain research. They believe that it’s possible.”
Tom’s voice was high with evident surprise, “Really? They believe that it’s possible to communicate from afar without an entanglement transmitter?”
The old man nodded, “They have suspected it for a long time. In their estimation, it’s related to the quantum entanglement transmitters that humans invented after the Seventh.”
“Entanglement transmitters created this situation?”
“More or less. Reviewing all the data from the last thousand years, they estimate that humans’ exposure to entanglement transmitters has altered brain structure on a quantum level. There has even been some isolated evidence of this in the past. It’s definitely possible that today most humans in the galaxy are connected to one another at every moment without being aware of it, without even needing the entanglement satellites anymore.”
“Connected at every moment?” Tom repeated slowly.
“Yes. In fact, humans are close to being one big intelligent entity,” rejoiced the old brain.
“Doctor, this idea is ridiculous,” Maya interjected. “And believe me that I’m not saying this because of my livelihood. I promise you that it’s impossible to transmit without a communication system. But even if he’s right and humans are connected to one another at every moment without needing entanglement satellites, why would that amount to the creation of an entity of collective intelligence?”
“I’m not sure, Ms. In my opinion, this collective intelligence, if it exists, is the result of the sum of human subconsciousness in the galaxy being connected.”
“So why don’t people dream in the city or the palace of Eternal Eden?” asked Guy.
“As Taige noted, a critical mass of people can conceal or even prevent the transmission of an intelligent entity.”
“How is that possible? Why do city people and Eternal Eden inhabitants not receive the same message as the rest of the galaxy’s population?”
“As Taige pointed out, a critical mass of humans can mask and even prevent the transmission by that intelligent entity”.
“How?”
Taige answered before the brain, “Because they live together. That changes their perspective and the structure of their subconscious.”
Guy looked at him, skeptically, “Let me get this straight. All the people in the galaxy are connected to one another creating a collective human intelligent entity that is transmitting a subconscious message to everyone to dream in the sleep machines. Only the inhabitants of Neifar and Eternal Eden avoid this message because they live together?”
“Precisely sir,” the dolphin replied quietly. “Proximity to other people neutralizes the effect of the subconscious message.”
“That’s stupid! There is no collective human intelligent entity,” Maya declared.
“The facts seem to demonstrate otherwise. Try to stop thinking like a homo sapiens for a moment and focus on the facts.”
“What? What are you trying to say? I don’t believe that a dolphin is trying to offend me.”
“Heaven forbid, Ms., I am just noting that among your species, there is a tendency towards fixed thinking,” Taige volunteered.
Maya reddened at the sound of General Bud’s thunderous laugh.
“The facts indeed tend towards Taige’s theory,” noted Doctor Reuben in a calming voice.
“Fine. Let’s say that you’re right. But if an entity of collective human intelligence exists, why would it want the individuals that comprise it to go to sleep and cease to reproduce?” asked Andre. “After all, that’s suicide.”
“Good point,” Doctor Reuben agreed with him. “I have no answer to that question,” he added with a sorrowful sigh.
‘Why would an entity of humans want to hurt the individuals that comprise it?’ Nola thought, and the solution appeared in her mind.
“It’s simple. A human entity is afraid of being alone. It thinks it’s alone in the galaxy and that frightens it, frightens it so much as to want to die.”
“The human race wants to commit suicide?” asked Andre.
“That’s not really new,” Maya noted drily. “The human race is always trying to kill itself.”
/> “Unfortunately, there’s something to that,” nodded the professor.
“But why only now?” Guy insisted. “What suddenly changed fifty years ago?”
“That’s a key question — what happened fifty years ago?” Taige agreed.
“The darkness dreams!” cheered the brain suddenly. He leaned forward with sudden excitement. “Fifty years ago, billions of people all over the galaxy began, all at once, reporting nightmares in which darkness is chasing after them. At the time, I thought it was just a strange coincidence. I figured it must have been related to some popular show or some other stupid trend. I was completely mistaken.”
They looked at him curiously, waiting for him to go on...
The old man waved his hand in the air and laughed. “Don’t you understand? The human entity isn’t afraid of being along. It’s not trying to commit suicide. It’s just dreaming.”
“Dreaming? You think it’s asleep?” Nola was amazed.
“Absolutely,” cheered the brain. “Sleeping and suffering from nightmares.”
“The entity sleeps and its dream has turned into our reality,” said Andre.
The old man nodded with excitement, “Exactly, the entity was born into an ongoing nightmare, it was created right after the Seventh by tens of thousands of scared people. People who experienced the loss of their home world and were on their way to immigrate to unknown places. The human entity is trapped within the fear of the individuals that comprise it. In fact, it lives in a long nightmare of fear and loneliness, and has never been awake; just trapped in a bad dream its whole life.”
He paused for a moment. “A nightmare that in the last fifty years began to leak into the dreams of those individuals comprising the entity.”
“So, humanity’s nightmare made human beings escape to a place without nightmares?” asked Andre.
“Correct. It’s not transmitting a command to them to dream, it simply chases them there,” agreed the doctor.
An intelligent entity dreaming? That was a new idea. The Whole thought. Thought with the power of thought of five billion cluster members.
The solution formed gradually within her mind.
Such a simple solution. Nola smiled, “Taige, Doctor, thank you for this enlightening conversation. Now we just have to contact this human entity.”
Guy looked at her in surprise. “Contact it? Commander, how do we do that?”
Bud answered instead of Nola. “That’s easy, Mr. Guy, it’s time for me to bloom.”
Chapter 36
Flower
“I still don’t understand your plan and how exactly you plan to make the transmission, but that’s the dream outline you need.”
Nola smiled at the elderly hologram, “Thanks, Doctor. I would be happy to share more information with you, but the laws of Neifar forbid it.”
He nodded with understanding and mumbled excitedly to himself, “Loneliness. The plague is about to return.”
“What plague?”
He stopped his mumbling, remembering he wasn’t alone. “In my youth, at the end of the twenty-first century, just before the beginning of the Seventh, the human race was battling a plague, a plague of loneliness. Thanks to technological developments, people no longer had to leave the house and thus almost never met face to face. However, there was one problem that technology caused and could not solve. Technology cannot satisfy the most important aspect of interpersonal connection; physical contact. If you succeed in your plan, seventy billion people are about to awaken to a confused existence. Friendship and human warmth ceased to exist fifty years ago and very soon there will be many, many lonely people in the galaxy.”
“I assume that you will have a lot of work, you won’t be able to complain about boredom anymore,” laughed Maya.
“Indeed, Ms. After fifty years of doing nothing, it will be nice to work again.”
Nola went over the list of tasks in her mind. The last few days had been hectic.
The Whole was working with great urgency and would not wait for so much as a minute. 28,000 cluster members worked at full capacity. Thousands of workers were needed to carry out the perfect coordination, she could not miss or make a mistake. If she did, she would not merely ruin a crop or cause the spread of a parasite in the gardens. If she screwed up, Bud might die.
At the end of four days of work, everyone met beside the pupation cell. Bud was the calmest of all of them. Nola was anxious and disturbed. The cluster members picked up on Nola’s tension and didn’t stop running around and checking the pupation cell. The Neifars on board were tense on account of the situation and its significance.
“Do you have everything, Bud? Are you sure that you’re ready for this? Maybe we should delay the pupation a few days and check that the cell is properly ready?” Nola transmitted to her.
“Calm down, Your Honor,” Bud replied. “The change has already begun. The Whole has already been feeding me the appropriate food for three days.”
“I know,” said Nola miserably. She herself had coordinated the preparation of the food according to the precise settings she had received from the Whole. If there had been any mistake in the recipe, Bud’s conversion would fail and she would die.
“It will be alright, Nola,” Bud transmitted.
Nola looked at her in surprise.
“What happened that you no longer call me ‘Your Honor’?” she asked her, smiling.
“It just doesn’t sound quite right anymore,” Bud smiled back.
“Okay, little humans,” Bud raised her voice, “see you in two days. Be nice to your commander while I’m away.”
“Good luck, General,” said Guy. He approached the general and gave her a hug.
She laughed with pleasant surprise, “thanks Guy, that felt nice.”
The rest of the Neifars approached and hugged her as well.
“Do you think you will remember us when you come out?” asked Ella.
“It would be impossible to forget you all, Doctor Ella,” laughed Bud.
She turned and went into the hexagonal room. The workers sealed the opening behind her.
They would have to wait for two days until Bud exited the cell, a good amount of time to rest and explain the situation to the city people. Ella insisted on remaining beside the pupation cell to supervise Bud’s vital signs. In the evening, Nola met with the others in the dining room.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I know that you want to understand what exactly is happening.”
“Yes, Commander,” Tom answered for everyone. “If you could please explain the whole process to us from the beginning? Until now we’ve only received partial answers. We would love to know what the Whole is planning and how we can assist.”
“Alright. Why don’t we begin by you telling me what you think is going to happen, and then I will fill in the blanks.”
“We don’t understand anything,” said Maya. “The general is going to go through some physical change, which will enable her to stop the functioning of the dream machines all over the galaxy. That’s about all we have managed to understand.”
Nola grinned. “Okay, not exactly. The general will indeed change, but she has no intention of stopping the functioning of the dream machines.”
Maya raised an eyebrow. “So, what is the plan?”
Nola smiled tiredly; she hadn’t slept a whole night for five days. She considered her words for a moment. Human communication was so limited, it wasn’t easy to use words to convey an idea that the Whole in its perfection had given her directly into her mind.
“As you know, the dream machines can’t function in the city, and aside from a few very rare instances, city people aren’t even interested in them. As Andre recognized and understood, this comes from living together, which prevents the influence of the nightmares that the human entity transmits.”
“God, Command
er, what’s happening here?” Ella breathed excitedly within her head. “This is unbelievable, it’s impossible.”
Nola ignored the internal transmissions that Ella sent. She knew exactly what was happening to Bud. The city people stared at her quietly, and Nola went on speaking. “The human entity is dreaming, and we can’t wake it. General Bud is not a typical whole member. She was created with the express purpose of saving human beings. She has a genetic composition that allows the Whole to shape her in almost any way and shape it wants. She went into the pupation cell to undergo a change. A change in her abilities and her shape. A change that will enable us to communicate with the human entity.”
She was quiet. The city people didn’t say a word.
“Is everything clear?” asked Nola.
“Yes, Commander,” Guy answered for everyone. He looked at his friends hesitantly. “But what exactly is the change that she is supposed to undergo?”
Nola winked at him, “Patience, Guy. Patience.”
The cell cracked. Ella scanned the screen and signaled to Nola that everything was in order. Nola and the city people moved behind her as big pieces of material began to fall from the walls of the cell.
The workers hurried to the cell and began to take it apart quickly.
Bud stepped out. “That was very refreshing,” she declared.
Nola heard the city people’s breath stop.
“Hello Bud,” said Nola aloud. Not via the implant.
Ella smiled proudly and excitedly. “You look amazing, General,” she declared.
“Thank you, Ella, I feel amazing,” Bud answered her with a radiant smile.
“How can this be?” Andre mumbled in clear amazement.
The tall, light-haired woman who had once been the general, walked toward them.
“Hello, General?” said Guy hesitantly.
“No hug this time?” Bud asked with a smile and hugged him.
