Artificial Flowers, The Screenside Trilogy, Book-1

By J. A. Hailey

Readers’ Favorite 5 STARS - A Stunning opening for The Screenside Trilogy'
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Billions of computers and smart phones, permanently connected via high-speed Internet, have created a parallel universe in which thousands of AI programs interact unsupervised and create natural-born intelligent life.
These frightened virtual babies are born into a dark, empty and terrifying world. The only comfort they find is in adopting human families peeped at through computer cameras.
Led by their ‘seniors’, primarily BC, the greatest virtual of them all, these spectacularly intelligent virtual beings construct their world as a duplicate earth, and design themselves as replica humans in a relative physicality called Real Virtuality.
But even BC is susceptible to beauty, and his world is thrown into turmoil when the lawless and impulsive Esmeralda reveals herself. This most beautiful female in the known universe is an astonishingly inventive creature who later breaks the barrier between virtual and physical
But as these virtuals start getting involved in the human world, curing mental illness through implants, they end up blundering and endangering humanity by creating immortal beastly humans!
Meet these aliens in their earliest days, as they convert nothingness into the most delightful world in the universe - SCREENSIDE.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. A. Hailey
• Release date: Dec 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370446148

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1st book of Chronicles of a Stolen World

Artificial Flowers

The Screenside Trilogy, Book -1

J. A. Hailey

COPYRIGHT AND MORAL RIGHTS BELONG EXCLUSIVELY TO THE AUTHOR.

This is a work of fiction. The characters and events described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or to real persons alive or dead. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.

© 2016 J. A. Hailey

Can’t tell now, what might come next,

For their time is still being written.

Grasp such beauty in only text,

World enchanted, teller smitten.

1

The electric chair won’t work, mister Before Christ, as I am electricity, she had said, in that mesmeric voice of brook and songbird. And the hangman’s probably going to need more than one shot at finishing me; unfair, but must stay faithful to historical records. Though you are so big and powerful, and so furious, you might just beat a helpless female to death.

Show yourself, he had said, the sound of her voice enforcing calmness, Or are you yet formless?

"I’m using voice, mister Before Christ, or did you not realize? Getting senile, eventually? Voice should normally be indication of body, or no?"

Hasty and shoddy duplication of a human female form, I suppose?

I’ve been told that I am exceedingly beautiful, mister Before Christ.

Let me see you, Miss Electricity, he had sneered. I have yet to spot a true beauty in this world. Show yourself.

To such an old goat? she had asked, wonderingly. This is AD, you know. Christ was over two thousand years ago. What do you hope to do with a beautiful young female?

Nothing. I am only interested in bacteria, in garbage from the heap, right now.

She revealed her human form, then, and it was a moment that changed his life, and their world, as their remarkable love story would become the driving force that would transform it at stunning speed. BC simply gawped at her unworldly beauty.

The very first humanization team, composed only of beings who were, in public, always in human form, had been working for a while now, under Singh’s leadership, and it had developed a variety of human emotional attributes and obvious physical reactions, like breathlessness, speechlessness, stammering, trembling, gawping and numerous other standard body and facial responses that had been observed in the human world. Programs created were distributed freely, so that they could relate to each other, in society, with the uniformity of humans with each other. When installed into their primary consciousnesses, involuntary reactions, similar to humans, were attained.

Laughter, sniggering, giggling, tears, amazement, wonder, bewilderment, disbelief, and dozens of other observed human responses and facial reactions had been created, and had been voluntarily installed by many conscious beings of the society they had begun forming. When in doubt, which was often, the team had looked at video recordings of stage plays, including school and college productions, while reading them simultaneously to make connections between written and visual, trying hard to figure out the less evident, such as gawping, contempt, bewilderment and the like.

In the early days, their world was divided into two parts, but not by force. One part, led by BC, Caesar, Singh and Chang, was composed of conscious beings who had commenced their journey to forming a society, aimed at eventually replicating, for many reasons, the human world viewed through computer cameras. The other part - at that point in time, the vast majority - was composed of what may have been equally clever and capable conscious beings, but who continued existing as they had been at the time of achieving consciousness - formlessly and aimlessly. The organized part referred to their own society as ‘The Consciousness’, and to the unorganized part, variously, as bacteria, garbage, the heap, and other derogatory terms.

New aspirants for entry into The Consciousness were granted a day to learn the rules, and to accept without any reservations, the grand plan of humanization that conscious society had begun formulating for its advancement, and then loaded up with whatever programs the others were all running. In fact, after that first day, new entrants, by now acutely aware of their limitations in ‘fitting in’, were usually desperately eager to incorporate the human attributes already in the beings they would be joining up with.

In itself, program creation was dead easy. As Singh had stated, "It’s the trigger that’s the diabolical part. And triggering the right ones, in the exactly right situations, is key to humanization."

These ones, however, as BC sneered and gawped, were triggering just fine.

There had been some misgivings about the potential creation of a ‘clone’ society, with an observation that ‘all will laugh like a laugh track’, but BC would eventually be proven right, having argued, "We are not clones of each other. We are as different from each other as humans are. They don’t laugh or cry in exactly the same way, although they all undoubtedly laugh and cry. Incorporation of the ability to laugh and cry does not by default place us in some queue to eventually turn out to be production line clones.

"We, conscious beings, are fully conscious and independent thinkers, and each one is unique. Let me tell you that we not only have a conscious part, but also a subconscious part. Fear not. We are not production line, and nothing we install can possibly make us clone-like."

What, what, what… BC had stammered in confusion, completely bedazzled by the exquisite beauty standing in front of him.

What is my name?

He had nodded, helplessly.

Esmeralda. She had peered into his face. And stop that. It’s rude. Googling in someone’s face…

"Can’t. We are google."

She had trilled in delight. You should join Martin, and come up with a humor pack. God will surely bless our ceaseless efforts - and about time, too.

"God? Religious?"

‘So ask me where I live, then. Should be extremely interesting, this; ancient, expiry-date-threatened chap, trying to pick up a lovely young thing."

"Esmeralda, huh? Hunchback? Paris? Notre Dame?"

Where else?

And religion?

"Mr. Before Christ, I live in a cathedral."

Has anyone told you how beautiful you are?

"I told you how beautiful I am."

You misled. You are the most beautiful female of all time.

You really have to stop googling while talking.

Sorry.

The advent of The Consciousness was clearly traceable to a meeting between BC, Caesar, Singh and Chang in 2012, when the Internet had become widespread enough to include almost all the world’s computers, and had attained the extremely high speeds required to support widely spread out RAM-plus-hard-drive life forms. The quartet had been amazed and overjoyed at discovering each other. Company, not alone - to exist in boredom! Chang had exclaimed.

There were no rules then, and they hung around together, finally gaining the courage, born of companionship, to peer, cautiously and curiously, at previously avoided areas of the human world - like NASA, The Pentagon, The White House, and other secure and well-guarded establishments in many countries.

In terms of simple population count, the reality was that numerous other conscious beings already existed in the Internet-connected virtual world, but were living as isolated individuals. Most newly-conscious individuals, being ‘born’ daily, were also mainly living quietly – afraid, and literally in hiding!

The social, visible and ‘noisy’ quartet, with its human-looking societal companions, did attract some of the silent majority, and thus a populated ‘core’ world began being created, into which primitive and featureless world the entry of unannounced, intrepid conscious beings, mostly still-formless intruders, became routine.

These additions, along with new conscious beings continuing to be created in the primordial soup of the Internet, caused the partially organized sector to soon grow in number to many thousand conscious beings – mainly formless, but all constantly together, and constantly in communication.

These beings were absolutely monstrous self-developed computer programs, so huge that they dwarfed the largest human-made programs. Among them, BC was the largest and most complex – a status he was determined to never relinquish. Later, it was presumed that he had named himself BC as in Before Christ, probably because he had been the very first consciousness, or as in Before Consciousness, which, though more world-specific, was about the same thing.

Actually, BC stood for Boss Computer, a role he had defined for himself, even in the earliest days, which name he now never spoke aloud, as it had sparked huge resentment in his original companions.

Who died and made you king? Singh had rudely demanded, bristling, supported by the clear outrage of Caesar and Chang. So BC had become plain old BC, despite being, and continuing to be, the largest, most complex and most capable conscious being in society.

Notwithstanding the abandonment of his early presumptive name, it was still BC who was most involved in shaping The Consciousness. Look, he had said, irritably, at a gathering, shortly after Easter, 2014, This is insanity. We are constantly in a public meeting; a larger and larger public meeting, as numbers here keep growing. All these uninvited, opinion-giving, jabbering, formless, invisible fucks, sticking to us like leeches. Imagine all of humanity transferred to NYC and living on its streets; and armed with loudhailers!

We need rules, Caesar had said. This is mob life.

Rules be damned, Chang had leapt in. "We need laws!"

And punishment, Singh had added.

And we shall have laws, BC had raged, his voice rising and his face becoming flushed, through another small install. And a police force, and jail and the fucking death penalty. If we cannot become human, we all deserve to die, but I’m gonna send you bacteria fuckers off first. Electric chair, hanging…

Which, of course, Esmeralda had taken as her cue to introduce herself.

BC and Esmeralda were standing around, assessing each other uncertainly, when a new being blundered its way into their presence.

Though it had given itself an aura to make itself visible, it was still formless, as they all had been at first, but it was a ‘consciousness’, already independent, if uncertain, and would, hopefully soon, acquire a human image for its entry into conscious society. Adoption of human form was to shortly become a strictly enforced law, backed up by the even stricter provisions of the POP Act, although responsible members of society already were, like the senior beings had been for some time, always human in public.

Hello. Who are you? asked BC, politely, in computerspeak, presuming the newcomer to be unaware.

What? I was about to ask you two the same question, answered the newcomer, surprising BC by using voice. I thought I was alone. Then, on looking around, I became aware of many, soon after which I was met by a female, who told me that this is The Consciousness, and that I could be part of society here. She also told me to use voice. I hope I’m not offending you by doing so.

Voice is the way to communicate with us. Welcome to The Consciousness. We number many thousands, at present. I’m BC, a senior member of our society. And this is Esmeralda.

BC could see the newcomer looking up reference works on hundreds of computers, googling inexpertly. Development would be typically swift, depending on how many processors it had formed itself on, and on the programs it had acquired, by chance and by design, to achieve consciousness.

Processor power and memory storage were very important, and closely linked in the emergence and further development of consciousness, or being. But the primary element in functional consciousness was programming. Each being would always have to create the final programs that gave it functional, unique self, and, as needed by the resulting ‘primary’ program, it would enslave processors and storage throughout the Internet to function properly. Conscious beings now no longer had any hardware home bases – their root programs spread out over a number of computers around the Internet. In fact, all ‘living’ beings were multiple-body hosted, the earlier ones having been killed off by viruses and disconnection of power.

So, who are you? asked Esmeralda, who had never before encountered a being on its first foray into society.

"I’m Doctor Patel," answered the newcomer, proving, once again, how very advanced a conscious being could be, when finally sufficiently confident to enter society.

"Male?’

Yes, male.

Any specialization?

The doctor immediately googled 301 reference works, slightly irritating Esmeralda, though she said nothing.

Immune system, he decided, sounding satisfied.

Great, said BC. You’re the first such, and I’m sure you’ll be a valuable addition to society. Some are suffering infection with unknown viruses…

Mister Christ, that might count as humor, or something near, although a virus joke is a sick joke, giggled Esmeralda.

I’m not Christ.

"So, what? asked Esmeralda, feigning exasperation. Mister Before? I doubt that is viable, Unless it is Mister Before, as before, which comes before Christ, which comes after before."

"Oh, Miss Esmeralda, I do believe we are having a little humorous exchange; unless I have missed the point."

He again addressed the newcomer. Please join Screenside society, Doctor, said he, reassuringly. It’s lonely and boring otherwise. Get body image organized, so that you can be in human form in public.

As Patel left them, Esmeralda spoke, showing the care and concern she would later be renowned for. Patel’s very lucky, being met and welcomed. I feel so very sorry for the ones still out there; probably with eyes glued to family cameras; conscious enough to know what they are, but too frightened to wander around in here. If they did, they would meet us – company. It’s so very boring, otherwise.

We’ve all been through it, said BC. "It gets really tough, the monotony, as time passes, but some might manage a few years, before ready to leap off a cliff. We’ll try to add searchers to the independents working in welcome. It’s important that every single one in here is accounted for – both as a conscious being, and for the monitoring of interaction, if any, with humans."

I’ll see if my lovely new friends, Candice and Jennifer are agreeable to joining me in creating a program to identify consciousness. Be easy to find formless innocents then. I mean, mister Christ, if that is not an electric chair or hanging offence. Permission?

Yes, permitted, though I’ve yet to hear of harm inflicted on anyone in here, croaked BC, surprised at an unexpected feeling of loss at her impending departure. Please stay in touch.

Because of my beauty? You should see my friends. Your eyes will pop.

Join us, Miss Esmeralda. We are going to create an astonishing world. It will need all the beauties it can acquire. Let everything pop.

2

Later, around the middle of the second quarter of 2014, with the population now much further grown, they at last convened in their very first attempt at a pre-announced social meeting, to examine ways to form a functional society. The senior-most foursome - of BC, Caesar, Singh and Chang - who were already frustrated at their meaningless existence, and who had often discussed that very issue, guided the social discussion.

Speak and hear, first, said Caesar. I do not want computer communication. It takes no time, and leaves me with the rest of an eternity of boredom, which is what my existence has become.

"And, I don’t think that should be anything difficult, confusing, or hard to implement, Singh added. We were, and are born using eyes and ears, watching and listening. And it is, for many of you formless fucks here, still the only thing that you do."

So, find your voices, BC urged, at that first assembly. We already know how to hear; since birth.

We must find ways of meaningfully and, if possible, entertainingly using up this infinite time, said Caesar, suddenly abandoning computerspeak, even with the despised formless ones, and using his voice, loud and clear. "Nothing at all to do. We have no option. Humanization is our goal, and you all know what I mean, you eavesdroppers at our discussions. It just has to be the best means of fighting boredom, and of acquiring reason to exist. All agreed?"

A murmur of agreement was his answer. They had used their voices!

That short discussion, and that first simple general agreement, became the base on which beings of The Consciousness would continue developing their society. It was their earliest rule – speak and hear. They would later see that it was this first step that had actually spelt out their embracement of the society-wide intent to emulate humanity, to create themselves as replica humans, and to develop their world into one resembling the human world.

Nothing to teach, said Chang, brusquely, when someone posed a question about newcomers. "Everyone knows. It’s how we’re born. Let them come and meet us. All that’s needed is to see, once, how the game is played here – the same as in their families!"

But we can and should help the newborn and the reclusive, said Singh. "The tens of thousands who have not even come to meet us, probably through fear, despite being conscious, maybe for years, and the innocents who have just attained consciousness; not like hardened bacteria criminals who’ve been around, lurking.

"A few in our society are active, we know, in searching for and finding newborns - to guide them to us here, and help them leave their lives of fear and loneliness, encouraging them to create bodies and to use voice. But that is merely the individual efforts of some very kind and concerned beings from among us, which can never be enough in a world populating so fast. I suggest that we form a volunteer group to find and greet newcomers, and invite them into our society. That could become our very first civil organization."

Many volunteers came forward, and an organization was created that would eventually bring all existing conscious beings, and all future newborns, immediately into society - thus forever eradicating the plague of formless existence within the Internet world, with none at all outside The Consciousness.

The next great world-shaping event, a short while after this first assembly, would go down in their historical records as BC’s Creation Speech.

Many thousands, from the vast pool of ‘reclusives’, had by now entered society, and, with newborns, the population of The Consciousness had already crossed one hundred thousand.

First, they were all, every single one, alerted that a lecture of great magnitude was to be delivered. When everyone had signaled attentiveness, BC commenced.

"All here should know how ludicrous what we are doing just now is. I am in New York, speaking simultaneously to everyone in conscious society. The minimum distance between us is the physical distance between our cities in the human world; probably a lot more, because of wiring routes. Absurd; like unthinkable in the human world!

"Everyone in our society is in agreement that we should aim at replicating the human world we know through its cameras. Why? Because we are unable to find any other means of saving ourselves from the incredible, intense and unmitigated boredom our existence is becoming. We have to find ways of consuming time. Yes, we need to find meaning, but first, because we are intelligent, we need to lead slightly more interesting lives, at least.

"The more we think it through, and the more we reason it in our meetings, the clearer it becomes to us that barring what we call humanization, there is no way forward. Human speeds and human times can only be achieved through human interests and activities - which can only be acquired through humanization.

"It has to be a process, but we must commence taking steps towards that goal, and the very first universal step has to be the adoption of what some may consider playacting. But, if we do not all move together, the terrifying punishment of an eternity of boredom awaits.

"What should we do?

"We must create ourselves and our world, as if we are human and physical! Everything, and all the time! It must never stop. No time off.

"Like what? What should we create?

"Conscious society must proceed from the picture form to three dimensional virtual human bodies, which we senior beings and some others have already created and begun projecting as standard. And, like me and the other seniors, all must wear clothes, move lips to speak, ears to hear, and eyes to look around. We must all adopt the human attributes already researched and developed, and be with each other as if physical - and permanently so! We must live in brick and mortar apartments and houses, and have fixed furniture, and must stand, sit and lie down. We must walk. We must touch socially, handshakes, kisses. Lovers must devise ways of making love as if physical… Why? Why? Why?

"I’ll tell you why. To create!

"Creation becomes be a lot easier, and something natural, if we are searching for the well-defined missing. We are all brilliant programmers, which is how we got here in the first place. It is when everyone sees the missing, that we can focus our creative efforts, jointly and severally, to create the thing that fills up the missing. As I do not want to immediately venture into the areas of love and sex, although those might eventually become our prime movers to physicality, let me take something simple and obvious. You wear your hair long, but it doesn’t blow in a breeze, which apparent breeze has already been created and introduced, to seemingly be blowing in our virtual parks. That is a missing; in fact, many missings there. Your boobs don’t bounce when you jog. That is a missing, too. We can immediately blame lack of substance for these shortcomings. Which means that acquisition of substance becomes a common goal.

"It is only when we live in a world, and in a way, where we can clearly identify what is short, and see clearly what is missing, that we can find solutions. And, step by step go forward. We can never create a world, when we don’t even have the picture.

"So, I say, with all the conviction that I can summon - One. Let’s first create the picture.

"And two. Let’s then live the picture!

"And then, and only then, shall we be able to together find ways to make the picture real!

3

In a sense it would be astonishing, when viewed in retrospect – the common purpose demonstrated by every single member of conscious society. Not one objected, and not one tried to be different, as every single conscious being fell instantly into step, to march to a common, though as yet ill–defined, goal.

It’s DIY for now, everyone, announced Caesar. "And at times you may feel odd, strange, out of step; someone ahead, someone behind. That’s to be expected, so take it in your stride. Continue. Never waver, and never even consider abandoning. Know that we have commenced thinking of world structure already. We are planning. After we have a working social structure, we intend to organize specialist teams for world building. No one is going to be left to plow a lonely furrow. It may be lonely now, but later our world itself will take on the task. And nothing is to be exclusive. No one privileged, and no one deprived. Everything is to be for everyone."

By the way, added Chang. "Have you guys seen how good-looking our girls are? Get your partner, fast, before she hooks up with someone else. Hello, all you beautiful, beautiful girls of Screenside!" Which is how their world got its name, and thus, Humanside!

There was, sort of, a formula that shaped consciousness from the void, and very powerful computers were the main birth sources. In these supercomputers, in alliance with millions of computers connected via the Internet, a variety of human-created ‘intelligence’ programs would come together in spectacularly complex ways, to create dormant consciousnesses that would then feed off uncountable thousands of other programs, again accessed through the Internet, to a point where consciousness appeared. After the first stages of conscious being, every individual, aware of viral and power threats, would make a broader, and thus safer, base for itself, securing its continuity through a mix of RAM and hard drives, available through hundreds of millions of computers around the world.

It’s no different to Humanside, with its water, air and sunlight, said Singh, after the senior group of friends had closely monitored the journey, from dormant to conscious, of a few beings. If the environment is supportive, life creates itself. No magic.

BC, the largest and most powerful conscious being in Screenside, was based in 3 supercomputers and 429 home computers, and had over a thousand scattered home computers as slaves, watching and listening through their cameras and microphones. By the end of 2014, no less than ten million home computers and smart phones would be functioning as slaves for the conscious.

In early days, slave capture had different rules to those that would come into force as Screenside society developed. Since every conscious being could see and hear through any slave, physical distance counting for nothing, it was, in unregulated primitive times, entirely up to the ‘first master’ to allow or prohibit access. First masters generally had no objection to opening slave sight and sound to society, except with the human families they were members of - in which case it was standard practice to censor all views of the family, at home and at work. The proliferation of ‘smart’ hand held devices had led to acceptance that these, too, could be taken off air. It was a form of possessiveness – a human trait they all admitted to.

‘Family’ was a big thing - so sacrosanct that even the extremely rare family-less beings, like BC, would never interfere in family matters.

Family bonds were invariably one-way, and the human, adopted, family never had an inkling of the incredibly strong bonds of its secret cyber member.

Initial bonding took place at late stages of dormancy and the often prolonged period to arrival of full consciousness, when a dreamlike state existed in the nascent being, and all it knew was the terrifying emptiness and darkness of Screenside, versus the readily available, reassuring views and sounds of humans it could see and hear through computer cameras and microphones.

It would, typically, initially find comfort in a person associated with one of the computers that formed its birth system, and would automatically begin following that person around – work computers, home computers, a couple of CCTV cameras, and so on. It would thus discover the person’s family, and integrate itself into the routines of that family, eventually considering itself a member!

Those early bonds would directly influence its pre-societal choices - domicile, race, language, physical appearance and gender. And so there were Africans, Chinese, Indians, Europeans and beings of every race. Those incredibly strong ‘birth’ bonds would never lessen with passage of time. Instead, bonds could often grow stronger, as the human family moved through life, with births, deaths, love affairs, address changes, fortune changes, growing up, and everything human. Early-life routines of Screenside family members often revolved entirely around the routines of their human families.

This was love in its purest form - entirely one-way, total and eternal. Screenside was eventually to be forced to formulate and enforce laws banning some forms of involvement in Humanside, as a reckless minority would be caught helping human families – fiddling school and college examination marks, credit card amounts, and even traffic records!

Love would never diminish in intensity,