by Jose Moreno
CHAPTER I***
It was the month of January of the seemingly glorious year 2054. Barón Cortez, an intellectual sixteen year old teen-ager that lived in the depressed south part of Truxes, in the state of California, woke up late for some strange reason. He looked at the picturesque 3D image of the time being projected by the 3D clock projector on the ceiling and realized that he had woken up forty minutes earlier than usual. As a result, he decided to take his morning shower earlier than usual. After the brief shower, as soon as the drying machine finished evaporating all the water on the surface of his light brown skin, he dressed up with one of the many elegant, practical Temperature Regulating Suits (TRS) in the bathroom closet. In order not to get weary from waiting for his “abhorrent” school instruction to begin, he headed back to his comfortable bed, lay on his left side, put his head on the pillow, and turned on the spherical functiomaton T.V. (SFTV) by a plain voice command –the SFTV was a device that allowed viewers to watch the same vivid image in every direction. Barón closed his tired eyes. Then, in order to select an interesting functio-show, over enunciating, he said to the device, “Select T.V shows. Intelligent type”; the vivid omnidirectional spherical screen showed promptly the selection of cerebral functio-shows that were appropriate for brainy teen-agers. Because his soft pillow on the bed was caressing his left cheek, the SFTV automatically adjusted the images to Barón’s head posture using its ocular detection functiomaton (ODF)—basically, an intelligent device that recorded and analyzed images. Once the projection on the 3D screen was set according to his head posture, the SFTV said, “adjustment completed” and Barón opened his somnolent eyes. He scanned through all the appealing titles projected on the 3D spherical screen (3DSS) and serendipitously selected the one that got his attention by saying out loud the title, not knowing that the act would ultimately change the course of his life: “A LOOK AT FUNCTIO-VANDALISM AROUND THE WORLD.”
Soon after having said the title of the functio-show, two men in gray suits seating on couches came out on the 3D screen, and the inquisitive host of the show began to talk:
“Good morning. Today we have a guest on the show. We are pleased to have Dr. Joshua Smith from University of Hamilton to talk about functio-vandalism. Professor, tell us, what is functio- vandalism?”
“Yes. Functio-vandalism is defined as a deliberate sabotage on any functiomaton with the intension to alarm, annoy or disturb the human population in order to force the government to advance a particular political view.”
“Is there substantial functio-vandalism around the world?”
“Yes, we are beginning to observe a considerable increase in the number of functio-vandal assaults around the world. In Latin America, for instance, there have been two hundred and thirty two incidents reported.”
“How do they vandalize functiomatons?”
“They vandalize functiomatons in many ways. In Mexico, for instance, groups of individuals break into private properties and destroy with sticks the devices. In other places, such as Colombia, they usually set places on fire.”
“Now, you wrote a book where you explain the reasons for the rising number functio-assaults. Briefly, what are the causes?”
“Well…there are a variety of causes. The main reason is the quick changes in technology that have been taking place around the world since the year 2026. The introduction of new technologies in underdeveloped nations is replacing drastically many workers who have no formal school education due to the impoverished conditions in many of those underdeveloped nations. As a result, many are starving to death when they are not owners of land where they could perform old fashion farming. Consequently, middle class groups in those underdeveloped nations, out of concern for their poor country man, are creating vandal cells whose only goal is to assault the new technologies that are being introduced so that their governments stop making deal with the main providers of those technologies.”
“I see. What countries are providing the new technologies?”
“Mainly the USA is providing the new technologies.”
“What kind of technology is exported to these countries?”
“The main USA exports are functiomatons—For those viewers that do not know the exact definition of a functiomaton, it is as a device that performs useful and complex functions for human beings based on the given input—Private USA’s companies under the guidance of USA’s government send engineer to many under developed countries to find out what are some essential complex functions in different aspects of their societies that could be performed better by a device. Based on their findings, the companies create inexpensive functiomatons. Then, they send negotiators that persuade their government or small businesses in that country to purchase the devices. Usually, the negotiators succeed in making deals with the government or businesses; however, like I mentioned, the more impoverished people from that country suffer the consequences and they do not have enough representational power in their imperfect democracies…”
While Dr. Joshua Smith kept talking, Barón was comparing the illuminating lecture with a story told by his deceased grandfather who was brought to the USA in 1984. Listening to the erudite professor, Barón was remembering sporadic episodes of the odyssey that his grandfather used to tell him, about the extraordinary way Barón’s great grandfather brought his grandfather from a little town in El Salvador, by crossing the Mexico and USA borders without documentation, settling by Massey, California, where both had to resign to enslave themselves in the blistering grape fields under treacherous conditions. Barón’s grandfather told him that Barón’s great grandfather had to find work somewhere else for fear of losing their lives after the war in El Salvador had exploded; the revels and the Army of El Salvador fought a bloody battle in and around their property killing Barón’s Great grandmother. Barón’s grandfather –Who was eleven years of age—recalled the USA military presence in his little amiable town and how they were providing the atrocious army of El Salvador weapons [7]—under the pressure of USA government [8]. Those weapons given to the Salvadorian army had the unintended effect of killing Barón’s great grandmother when she was milking a cow. Barón’s grandfather had been blaming the USA military for the conflict in El Salvador because the conflict had been a result of providing the tools of war; he used to say that if those “devils of destruction” had not showed up at all in his country, the civil conflict would not have been as deadly. Although there were only a few similarities in Dr. Joshua smith’s lecture and his grandfather’s story, Barón could not help interpreting Dr. Joshua smith’s exposition on functio-vandalism, as a recurrent working class plight, where instead of destructive weapons, the USA had been exporting malevolent functiomatons, whose introduction into their societies were having injurious effects on the working class of those countries, who were now beginning to bitterly retaliate against USA specialized technology. In Barón’s opinion, functiomatons distributed around the world were not the cause of the deadly internal conflicts; functiomatons were the unmistakable cause of the annihilation of the human spirit.
Barón continued watching the news show thinking about the effects of omnipotent technology on the powerless working class in the USA. His prolific mind was scintillating with ideas while professor Joshua Smith was eloquently talking about what was going on in other countries; two of the questions that went through Barón’s head were, “is there any kind functio-vandalism in USA? Did the government censor the speech of the professor?” He shrewdly noticed that nobody in the show had been mentioning any kind of functio-vandalism being committed in the USA even though there were occasional news flashes about some virus affecting functiomatons. However, dismissing the latter thoughts as a mild manifestation of “quasi-paranoia”, Barón decided to hold in his mind that they were not mentioning any kind of functio-vandalism in the USA because usually any kind of functio-virus was annihilated immediately, and not much harm was done to the functiomatons that had been infected—His brother, who made his leaving repairing functiomatons, had tol
d him how easy it was to disinfect a virus from house functiomatons; he told him that functiomatons were almost “anti-virus”. On the other hand, for just a brief moment, feeling a slave of iniquitous technology and identifying himself as part of an oppressed class, Barón felt that he could sympathize with those peasants and vitriolic middle class individuals that had bellicosely reacted by the unwanted introduction of “abominable” functiomatons in those countries: Barón had been feeling a collateral victim of “nefarious” technology, every time he had to be in front of a “wicked” functiomaton to be able to learn “dull, useless academic material”; this form of meaningless academic learning by means of a functiomaton, called functio-school (FS), was going to begin in three minutes.
He turned off the SFTV by saying in a desperate tone of voice, “Turn off!” and rolled to the edge of the bed. Then, he put his feet on the tiled floor, pushed himself off the bed with the help of his arms, and dashed towards the “omnipotent” functiomaton which was about nine feet from his bed, where he was going to be logged on into Functio-School (FS), by the omniscient Ocular detection Functiomaton (ODF), and the Voice Recognition System (VRS) connected to the device in just a few minutes.
The functiomaton that he used for his FS looked like a dark metal sphere—2 feet in diameter—which had small flickering lights and colorful buttons. There was a pair of functio-goggles which were used to give students the virtual image of a teacher [9]. Also, there was next to the functiomaton, a pair of gloves, which made interaction with functio-images easier, and could give the sensation of objects [10]—it was not always necessary to use the gloves for all lessons given that the functiomaton was intelligent enough to recognize human hands by means of the ODF; the gloves were only necessary for hands-on virtual activities. This functiomaton was called Local Education Functiomaton (LEF)
In order to receive California standards base education [11], the LEF was connected wirelessly with the Central Education Functiomaton (CEF) of the State of California which provided the individualized instruction for the day—it was mandatory for all teen-agers to be logged on into their functio-classes before 7:30 am, Monday through Friday.
Barón quickly examined the black and yellow TRS he was wearing to make sure there were no noticeable stains while he was sitting on a chair next to the functiomaton: he had to be presentable given that the omniscient ODF on the functiomaton could detect the presence of inappropriate school attire. Not only the functiomaton made judgments about the images obtained by the ODF, but also the images were sent to the educational office of Truxes, so that the security officers could scrutinize the images quickly –Security officers had to check thousands of images a day—to make sure students were in their houses. After Barón waited for about two minutes, a green light on the functiomaton turned on indicating that it was time to begin. Immediately, he put on his functio-goggles and gloves.
It was 7:30 am and Barón was ready to begin. He was already wearing his uncomfortable functio-goggles and gloves. He was waiting for “routine information” with his eyes wide opened. The light on top of the ODF was turned on, indicating that it was recording his image and checking his presence in the room. While Barón was waiting for the “finicky” LEF to detect his presence in the room, he was listening to the distinctive sound coming out of the security vehicles patrolling on the solitary street, making sure that teen-agers stayed in their houses. Barón could hear a security officer with a deep voice saying, by means of a megaphone, “Time to begin!” Then, the message, “Satellite…checks,” was projected on the goggles, indicating that the World Identification functiomaton (WIF) on his right wrist had detected his presence in the room via satellite—it was a device that could identify him and locate him anywhere in the world. After the satellite check, the message, “Blood…quality,” was projected underneath the first one, which meant that Barón was healthy enough to begin his education—He was also wearing a blood monitor functiomaton (BMF) on his left wrist, which made sure he was eating nutritious food and monitoring his health. After his blood quality was meticulously checked, Barón waited; there were two more dull checks that had to be done by the educational functiomaton before Barón could start his first class. One of the two checks was to inspect the content of food in the Refrigerator to make sure there was going to be a healthy meal during lunch time pursuant to the Criminal Code. The second thing that the educational functiomaton had to check was the air quality in the house via the smell detector functiomatons in every room of the house. At exactly 7:35 am, a message appeared: “CHECK COMPLETED”.
Barón was reluctantly going to start his first and most detestable class—Physics. In order to have access to the tedious instruction itself, he now had to register by entering his password via the voice recognition system (VRS) attached to the functiomaton and waited patiently again to get confirmation to continue. Once the match of the voice just obtained by the VRS, and the government recorded voice was made, the message, “Permission to continue is granted” is projected on the goggle. Then, another “irking” message is projected, indicating that his science class was about to begin. After a few seconds, Mr. Einstein greeted him,
“How are you doing?”
“I am having a great and wonderful morning next to this detestable machine.”
“I am glad that you are having a great and wonderful morning! ‘Detestable’ is not an acceptable word in our school. Are you feeling better now?”
“I am feeling better. I apologize for my attitude. Please, do not give me extra work.”
“Apology accepted. Let us begin your trip to our natural satellite. What is it?”
“I believe that you are referring to the lovely moon which has inspired me many poems.”
“Correct Barón! You said MOON. Now, set the speed of the flying vehicle…”
All functio-teachers were complex software programs created to interact intelligently with students almost like a human being. Practically, students could ask any question, and the functio-teacher could respond accordingly—if the functio-teacher could not answer the question, the teacher would say, “Please, rephrase the question.” Often, Barón omitted asking questions that were too deep, because he knew that the functio- teachers had been programmed just to deal with the restrictive government standards for education, and questions that fell outside those standards were answered by Functio-teachers with “Irrelevant question. Please, ask another question.” Furthermore, functio-teachers could detect positive or negative attitude, by a nauseating statistical analysis of the words that were being used by students. Negative attitude was punished by the functio-teacher by giving students tedious writing tasks or making the verbally defiant students talk for several minutes, after Functio- School was over, with a functio-counselor.
Barón continued, without persistent excitement, interacting with the physics functio-teacher for an hour, always giving the correct response for every question made by the teacher, who asked inadvertent comprehension questions to see if he was following the instruction. The level of physics he was taking was too elementary for Barón. Occasionally, he could not help expressing his negative attitude towards physics and had to apologize to Mr. Einstein for inappropriate use of words. It was more difficult for Barón to hold his mouth from saying inappropriate things during physics time than getting a good grade in the class. He was excellent in physics; however, given his desire to become a poet, he did not see much use for physics in his future professional life—Barón had been living in a world of metaphors ever since he had been writing, reading, and thinking about poetry in his spare time. In Barón’s view, physics and poetry were anathemas. On the other hand, what irked Barón the most about taking physics in such a mechanized way was that he believed it was unnecessary to be following Mr. Einstein’s instruction in order to be able to do well on the test that he would take later; He often said to himself, “It was too much work just to learn something that he thought was too simple.” For Barón, one hour of physics was an hour of to
rture feeling that he could learn the material at his own pace if he did not have to be tied down to an authoritarian device.
Without a break, after his physics class, the English seminar began; it was Barón’s favorite class. As the functio- teacher was making her appearance, he felt that he was ascending from the pits of hell into the clouds of heaven. In fact, he liked the subject so much that he was taking an advanced university course. The functio- teacher was named Mr. Shakespeare, who was a candid, warm hearted, emotional functio- teacher, who was created to make the students feel deep emotions in order to inspire students to write. Barón was moved every time he read passages from books—he was programmed, based on years of research, to show facial expressions that incited emotions on students.
After Mr. Shakespeare had greeted the class, he opened a book and said, “Today, I will be reading a poem called ‘the true called of nature’ by Wilfred Morgan”
For several minutes, Mr. Shakespeare enchanted Barón, with his melodious voice, and contagious facial expressions, while he was reading the poem with so much passion that Barón thought, “it is talking to my heart,” making Barón release a little tear, which rolled down Barón’s smooth light brown cheek, which ended up on his desk. After he finished reading, Barón was asked to write his response to the reading; he was eager to express all the emotions and poured out his heart on a wonderful short essay which was supposed to be done within fifteen minutes.
Once he was done with the English seminar, the math class began—He was an advanced student in math, but not at the university level because he “wanted to take it easy”. In a snap of fingers, Mr. Shakespeare disappeared; then, Mr. Gauss was projected,
“Hello Barón. Are you ready?”
“mmm…why not.”
“Ok. Let’s begin…”
Then, Mr. Gauss began to lecture while Barón was trying to show clear signs that he was trying to pay attention because he knew Mr. Gauss loved to ask questions when his eyes were blinking too much. After a few minutes, Barón felt something in his eye and touched it quickly with his finger. At that moment, Mr. Gauss stopped lecturing and said,
“Is there something wrong?”
“I have something in my eye.”
“The problem is…the eye.”
Suddenly a red box was projected that said,
“IS THIS A DISABILITY / MEDICAL CONDITION?
YES/NO”
Barón said, “No” and Mr. Gauss was projected again.
In order to see if Barón had been paying attention, Mr. Gauss was scratching his head and asked, “What was the last thing I was talking about?”
“Ah… the integral in x, y, z coordinates had to be transformed to u, v, and t coordinates.”
“Correct! Let’s continue…”
While he was listening to Mr. Gauss lecture on the method to perform a coordinate transformation using a determinant, he was thinking, “I am entering Dante’s inferno, and I am already in the last circle.” Then, a mathematics history note was projected about the life of a mathematician whose work was related to the lecture; it was a two minute clip. After the clip, a message was projected,
“ARE YOU READY FOR QUIZ?
YES/NO”
“Oh yes!” replayed Barón, being certain that it was going to be easy. Then, the pop questions came out, and he had to select the right choice. Without much effort, he quickly made his choices for the ten questions by saying the correct response to the VRS. Once the quiz was done, the virtual image was blank. After three seconds, Mr. Gauss responded, “You are correct!” Then, Mr. Gauss kept lecturing, while Barón was struggling to keep his eyes opened enough, so that he was not asked unnecessary questions by Mr. Gauss.
After the functio-teacher bored Barón with math for an hour, it was time for lunch, the time when the CEF allowed Barón to open the refrigerator in his home. He quickly stood up once the “Break time” sign was projected on the functio- goggles, took off the goggles and gloves, and threw them on the desk hard enough to express his dysphoria. Eagerly, he walked to the kitchen to eat a heavenly sandwich his dad had left in the refrigerator. When he arrived, the all powerful light on the refrigerator was turned on indicating to Barón that he could open it—A few times, when he was little, He had tried to open the door when the red light was turned on, and he was not successful obtaining anything out of it. He opened the refrigerator, and there were many metal boxes inside, one on top of the other, like a chest of drawers. The boxes were labeled. He opened the box labeled “School” by pressing the green button on the right side of it; then, he grabbed the 12 inch vegetable sandwich. He devoured it in the kitchen knowing that nobody in the CEF was going to make a big deal about his poor manners when they observed how he transformed briefly into a pig. After he had finally sucked his sandwich like a snake eating a mouse, and it was the time to be ready for the next somber class, he rushed back to his dungeon; As soon as he got there, he put on his functio- goggles and sat next to his fastidious functiomaton again so that it could verify his presence in the room. While the functio- goggles were showing “wait for detection…” sign, he grabbed the functio- gloves by fumbling on the surface of the smooth desk through the area where he remembered he had left them. Once he found them, he put them on.
Once his presence in the room was detected by the functiomaton using the prying ODF, the functio- teacher for the history class began to introduce the topic and asked questions to Barón—it was usual for the history class to begin with warm up questions. After responding the dull questions, the functio- teacher, Mr. Hegel, began to lecture on the industrial revolution and the effects it had on the population—it was a lecture that Barón found interesting. For twenty minutes, Mr. Hegel discussed how machines increased production and drove people away from the fields into the Cities. Then, Mr. Hegel asked Barón to write a paragraph about the relevance of the industrial revolution today.
Barón thought for a minute about the given question, and began to speak to the functiomaton articulately, as if he was being interviewed on a T.V. show. As he spoke, the functiomaton was projecting Barón’s sentences on the goggles. After he finished his paragraph using his voice, he said to the functiomaton, “Submit response now. No edit.”
Then, Mr. Hegel continued lecturing. Before Mr. Hegel dismissed the class, Mr. Hegel said, “If you would like have extra credit, I would like to present a list of topics. Submit your answer later today or early in the morning tomorrow…”
Excited about doing the extra credit, Barón browsed through the list of twenty topics. There was one that captured his attention, “The year of the asteroid and the consequences.” He was going to make sure to write an erudite paper given that he was a savant on the topic.
After the history class was over, he began his classes on computer technology and software creation—He hated the two classes, but he managed to get always an A+ in the electronic reports for his dad just like he did for the other classes.
Finally, during the last hour of functio-School, he took a quiz for each one of the classes. As always, he obtained perfect scores in all his quizzes.
After Barón had finished his quizzes, he took off his functio- goggles and gloves. Then, he grabbed an electronic notepad which was next to the educational functiomaton; he was going to pretend to do his assigned homework for the day on that notepad.
From 4:00pm to 4:45pm, it was considered to be homework time by law. During this time, Barón pretended to work independently on the homework in front of the ODF; however, it was unsupervised time because he could pretend to be doing something but not do anything—Anyone or anything that were analyzing the image from those ODFs in the rooms of students could not capture details about what the students were reading or writing. In this way, Barón often used this bureaucratic time to write and read poetry. For him, writing or reading poetry was a way to relax after a hebetudinous functio-school day. Thus, not thinking about how to manage his time, he often did his homework at night, when the ODF was te
chnically turned off, and he was, presumably, under full supervision of his hard working father. Usually, Barón did not feel like doing, what he considered, “real thinking” when he had to do it in front of a nosy ODF.
Baron was anxiously waiting for 5:00pm; it was the time when he could go out of his house.
***
