Planet-H: The End of the Beginning

by J. T. Winterlord

  I found Denise had just finished showing some of the solar power plant to customers. It stretched away from N Technology over an area ofabout five thousand square meters.

  It looked like a beautiful garden with lots of gravel paths, except that in the various flower beds there were groups of cells that produce energy.

  She explained that the plant was small but with high efficiency and that was enough for the energy needs of the company and the small town in which the company stood.

  N Technology provided the energy for free to the entire community of the town and this madethem more than welcome.

  She seemed especially radiant and relaxed. I said cheerio to Denise to resume my work with Sgrunff.

  There were ideas in my mind that I could not put into relation with others, but I felt satisfied.

  When I was again before my instructor I asked,

  "Excuse me Sgrunfio. Why can we not simply turn off the diffusers of my Tasker so that I can get out?"

  "This is a good question Kate. It means that you are beginning to accept that you do not really live in Planet H, but if were to do this we would effectively throw away all the work done so far.”

  I thought about this for a moment. I did not really understand what kind of work it was.

  "Are you talking about my analysis Sgrunfio?"

  "Excuse me," I said again, "what is it for since you could do it better in much less time?"

  "It's not exactly like that Kate.You are providing vital information to Sven, but you will understand, remembering. Maybe behind this simple work is a greater purpose, don’t you think?"

  I asked him what it was, but he told me that I would remember a little at a time, for now I'd had enough information for what I needed. I had to process it and understand.

  "Give yourself some time to think about the experiences you have just gone through Kate, the memories will re-emerge a little at a time.”

  My day ended there.

  Evening had already arrived. Time had a different way of passing here - it seemed to flow away.

  I went home and stretched out on my enormous bed. In a very short while I was asleep and found myself again in the room next to the infirmary which I had mentally called‘The transit zone’even if there was no special reasoning behind it.

  As always I found Sven in attendance.

  It was question time. In that state I could understand everything completely and quickly.

  I understood that on certain occasions the Planet H body‘fell asleep’and I was free outside my Tasker.

  "What are you working on?”I asked him, wanting to understand the purpose behind his work.

  He pulled out a small object with tweezers, amplified the vision and showed it to me.

  "This simple object has nine main circuits that work in sequence, one after the other at high speed," he twirled it slowly as in adoration

  "This little bastard sends conflicting information to the higher diffuser in order to confuse the person who is under its effect.”

  I realized that his words were now concerning me.

  "Until now I have localized twelve of them, but I suspect that there are more. With your help Kate, I should be able to locate them all and make them inactive.”

  He explained further about the changes made to the higher diffuser. He showed me a picture on a screen that represented what I had already learned to recognize as the higher diffuser.

  "Look at the procedure. Watch what happens."

  The images began to flow, becoming a video that simulated the operation of the mechanism lights.

  "At the beginning of the process, at the center of the higher diffuser a black light is projected. This is aimed, on the one hand to block the creation of new thoughts, so as to create sufficient vacuum to begin the mental process and on the other hand it generates a slight amnesia in the individual, something very similar to hypnosis.

  Sven continued with a sigh, as if the bad news had yet to arrive.

  "I managed to ascertain that this black light was greatly magnified so that the induced amnesia is so strong as to annihilate the individual who is subjected to the light with the clear intention of not allowing him to remember or realize that he is in a video game. He remembers nothing of what was before entering the Planet H. Everything that he was vanishes in the same moment in which the upper diffuser begins its diabolical work.”

  Everything he was recounting seemed perfectly clear and logical, so I asked him to explain what was Prison H. I remembered something, but it was confusing. I needed a hint in order to remember what was already somewhere in my knowledge.

  He hesitated a moment, then began his explanation.

  "As you will remember, there are two separate universes and among these there is a free trade zone. Perhaps you don’t remember that in this zone I installed Planet H.”

  The Externals ... you remember about the Externals don’t you? Well, they saw the potential of the video game and asked us to use it as a prison. Put simply, they asked us if they could take advantage of a part of the game for that purpose.”

  I could see in his sad eyes a genuine guilt, as if he carried a burden too large for a single individual.

  "In fact there were very few players in proportion to the magnitude of the game and there was a lot of unused space, so he was given permission to use one part which however had to remain separate from that used by normal players."

  He took a long pause that I did not dare to interrupt and with eyes fixed on the floor he continued.

  "In a short time they began to take over and soon‘Planet’turned into‘Prison.’"

  I felt that my lucidity was slowly leaving me.

  The scenery changed and became that of a dream. I drifted inside it and started travelling in my conscious dream.

  THE COMMITMENT

  Sven’s explanation was certainly not enough, but it was enough for the moment.

  There was something that I felt to be true in it.

  There had been other times when, after returning from a short trip in my mental body I realized that I had discovered some very strong truths, but I could not manage to remember.

  So I got my head down and continued to work without interruption in the project.

  By now I was getting used to the double life. Finding myself working with my mental body mademe understand much deeper things than when I worked with the Planet H body.

  I worked diligently on analyzing the data on the spiritual side of human knowledge and putting the data in relationship to the mental body.

  Sgrunff had become an irreplaceable support; he could always make me think in a more logical way.

  He got me to break down my conclusions and then re-assemble them examining new perspectives, to the point where a thing worked in the full sense of the word or was discarded and relegated to the world of falsehood.

  I often had discussions with Sven who acted as my auxiliary assistant in understanding the dichotomies and together we tried to process them until we found the key elements.

  Much work was done in the context of analyzing the keys to understand in how many different ways these were instilled through the upper diffusers.

  Time passed quickly, but I realized that since my visit to the Silver Thunder eight months had passed by.

  Research and analysis were well advanced but not yet completed but it would take another two months to begin to do a short summary of the information unearthed.

  I thought to myself that it was time to have a nice chat with Sgrunfio and with this in mind I entered the great hall where Sgrunff was busy looking at something on the screen.

  "Sgrunfio, Hello. I’ve finished my analysis work and I have two or three thousand questions."

  Sgrunff turned to me and greeted me with,

  "So…here is our indomitable Kate ... maybe you can ask me your questions after you showed me and explained your job, what do you think?"

  "But Sgrunfietto dear, I have a slight confusion in my poor head. How can I exp
lain something that I can hardly understand and believe myself?"

  He looked at me with a kind of pretend - thoughtful look. I saw him chuckling under his breath.

  "Okay Kate, tell me about your slight confusion."

  "Well Sgrunfio, listen, I have a hard time to relate a few things. Although I well remember the experiences I had during my days spent here, I have the distinct feeling that it was all a dream. I mean ... I have vague distant memories and ... "

  I stopped when he interrupted me, raising his two right hands. He said it was quite normal that my memories appeared that way and I shouldn’t be worried about asking him the questions I had in my head.

  I started with the questions that were most confusing to me.

  "Well, I'd like to understand what exactly is the mental body Sven talks about, the‘body’that I use in my dreams, the voices in my head that seem to speak. Often I don’t remember what I’ve dreamed of and who or what I am really.”

  "Just that then?" asked Sgrunff, adding "they are all only little easy questions."

  He laughed before continuing,

  "I understand your confusion Kate, my job is to get you to answer these questions for yourself using logic and examples, if necessary using demonstrations that shake up your normal way of thinking."

  He paused as if to give me time to reflect, and then asked if I had more questions than those posed before.I told him yes, I had one -

  "Why, if H Planet is a video game, are there so many people in it? And ... why do individuals within a videogame in turn also play games?”

  "Well, it pleases me that your questions are going in the right direction. Maybe you have some questions about ghosts or spiritual beings."

  I thought a moment and replied, "No, not at the moment. Nothing occurs to me ... actually, yes however, I would have a question about that."

  "OK Kate, let’s do it like this. You show me your analysis and I will try to point you in the direction of the answers to your questions."

  I thought it might be interesting, so I agreed.

  "Well, at the beginning of my analysis I took into consideration the dichotomies ...”

  Sgrunff interrupted me and told me to explain things as if I were to teach someone who does not know the subject of my analysis.

  "Kate, try to consider me as your new student. Explain to me what the dichotomies are and what are your conclusions about them."

  I began to move in front of the screen, I cleared my throat and began.

  "Well, dear Sgrunfio, a dichotomy is a pair of words that express opposing concepts of a particular subject. Take for example the words Black and White. This pair of words forms a dichotomy, in them we find a scale of grays from darkest to lightest, but only the two opposite words form the dichotomy.

  Other examples of dichotomy we find in the words Good, Evil, Create, Destroy, Love and Hate and there are many others as you can easily imagine.”

  I walked back and forth, looking at the floor and gesturing with my hands in order to not lose focus.

  "At the beginning of my analysis I realized that in the mind of a person there are some basic dichotomies such as good and evil. This dichotomy seems to be an eternal conflict, another might be the truth versus lies. And so I assumed that these pairs of opposite words would create a kind of foundation from which to search for new truths.

  An attentive Sgrunff commented,

  "Well Kate, the concept of dichotomy is clear to me, but what does that have to do with your analysis?"

  I looked into his eyes, thinking,‘Now I’ll get you!’I said,

  "It seems that these strange pairs of opposites have to do with the confusion in my head, so I think they have some importance."

  I thought that bringing attention to me I would have brought him to explain my sense of confusion, but this tactic did not seem to work because he asked me to relate these dichotomies to my confusion.

  Damn, I still had to try to explain.

  "You see Sgrunfio, I often find myself thinking very noisily; my thoughts seem to have a voice and are at odds with each other, not only over very relevant things but also trivial subjects. I often have two voices speaking inside my head, and if I refer back to the psychology texts I have seen before I could say that something is not working correctly.

  However, these two voices seem to want also to advise me over small and trivial decisions, for example on what shoes to buy. One recommends the brown pair, while the other tells me that blue is better."

  I paused, exasperated.

  "Do you understand Sgrunfio?”

  Of course I understand you Kate, but you're forgetting to relate them together."

  "Ok boss, you asked for it! - I have the strange feeling that these dichotomies are different - for example, if the main dichotomy is to create / destroy and I take into consideration to create a small garden in the field behind my house, well .... I find no conflict between the facts of creating or destroying a vegetable garden since the garden does not exist in the first place, but I find myself in a fight as to whether to make a small garden or larger one, whether to create it a little to the left or more to the right. Maybe I also argue with myself around the great question of what to sow - whether to plant zucchini or tomatoes ...”

  He stopped me promptly. I thought I had probably knocked him out with my seemingly senseless dialogue but he said he would call Sven.

  "What you have just said could be of considerable interest to him. Wait a minute, I’ll ask him to join us."

  So saying, he took his Pac and got in communication with Sven who joined us after a few minutes.

  Sgrunff asked me to repeat to Sven what I had just said about the dichotomies and my confusion, so I again recounted the example of the garden.

  Sven listened carefully with great interest, and at the end of my explanation he said,

  "I think you have got the correct answer centered around the content of the circuits added to the upper diffuser. I'll go check out a theory that I developed some time ago......“

  I lost the last words of his sentence because the door was already closing behind him.

  Everything now seemed to me even more strange, even more confused and unreal.

  I rolled my eyes upwards and spread my arms in a gesture of defeat.

  "Does anyone understand anything at all about what these people are saying?”

  “Who are you talking to?”Sgrunff asked, following my eye-line.“there’s no-one up there.”

  He added that we would wait to hear what Sven had discovered before continuing with the dichotomies, and then asked me if I wanted to address another topic.

  I paused a moment since my reasoning must have been rather confused, and I was struck by a memory.

  "But didn’t I blow you up some time ago?”I asked Sgrunff.

  He laughed and turned his back to me, saying,

  "You have a good memory Kate, so now do you want to talk about holograms and the mental body?"

  "What has the mental body and holograms got to do with it? I remember that you were shattered into thousands of pieces - what exactly happened?"

  "You must know, dear Kate that the mental body is what you experienced when you left the Tasker.”

  He paused briefly then continued.

  "You are standing inside Planet H and you have a body, do you not think that I have one too? Maybe it's different from yours, maybe it's just a simple hologram. "

  I bowed my head slightly to one side, like a dog demanding an explanation. I stared at him in a questioning manner.

  “A simple hologram ?"

  "Yes Kate, it’s a special hologram created by mental energy. We call it Olog but the correct term is a hologram. Imagine an actual body similar to those present in Planet H, but this body is constructed using the energy of the mind of the individual, together with a particular program designed by Sven."

  I looked at Sgrunff, incredulous.

  "But when you explode you're not dead?"

  Sgrunff began to
laugh loudly and I thought my question somewhat bizarre because he was there in front of me.

  His laughter diminished and he asked,

  "Do you remember the infirmary experiment, the double jump?…Are you also not dead during life?“

  Yes ,I remembered what had happened. I had experienced death by strangulation. I said,

  "But you're still here, while I was dead in that life so I could no longer continue to live. Sven would have had to modify the life to continue it, I should have had to return in that machine and change the path."

  “Exactly Kate, you have grasped the meaning. You burst my hologram and I have rebuilt a new one .... is it so hard to understand?"

  "Then I can do it again when I want to?" My eyes closed like those of an animal with a foretaste of the prey.

  "You could, but if you do I’ll disintegrate you," he said very seriously.

  "Really? You could do that?"

  "Nahh ... joke! I could however knock you around like in a centrifuge. That I can well do with four hands!”

  "I'll take your word for it Sgrunff. In any case, all this is not so easy to understand for me, so if you don’t mind, tell me exactly what this mental body is? "

  "Pay close attention Kate. Everything that you see in your mind is made up of energy. This energy we call mental energy and this energy can create the image of a body. Now, think about projecting this image outside of your mind and to ensure that others can also see this image. In summary, the mental body, which we also call‘Energy Body’, is what is trapped in your Tasker and that you experienced when you came out. Can you follow me?”