EDEN 1
‘You know, they said there wasn’t much left of Frank when they recovered the body from his car.’
Tom stepped into the formation room before Sherry. ‘I know, we are so sorry.’
‘Well, it wasn’t your fault, was it?’
Sherry entered the room and Tom closed the door behind her. The room was about the size of a small bedroom. A small couch sat along one side of the room, a glossy work table in front of it. Two terminals poked out of the top of the table, their monitors tilted to be viewed from the couch. Sherry took her bag off of her shoulders and put it down on the work table. She sat down on the bench and scooted over to make space for Tom. She patted the couch beside her.
Tom sat next to sherry. He leaned over to the monitor so that the camera could see his face. After a moment the room dimmed and two computers became illuminated with Tom and Sherry’s dashboards. The wall opposite the couch took on a dark purple, an illuminated hue.
Tom began to speak out loud to the room in order to initiate the session. ‘The time is 1400 on 23rd January. Tom Bones is present here as coordinator for Sherry Taylor, client 003, for a forming session of their digital twin, twin 004. Thank you Sherry for your visit today.’
Sherry turned to Tom and smiled. ‘Of course, Tom, its nice to see you again. Everything well?’
Tom smiled back at her. ‘Yes, everything is well, thank you. How can I help you today?
Sherry opened her bag and leaned into it. She pulled out a couple of green binders and placed them in front of Tom. ‘If it is possible, I would like to incorporate these today, Tom. She pushed the binders over in front of Tom, and he opened them carefully.
T0m paged through the binders. It was a mix of material, all from photos to postcards, menus from different take out restaurants and letters, signed ‘your pen pal’. He looked carefully at every document, looking for signs of anything that might identify Sherry or would only ever come from Sherry. Photographs, signatures, any names, anything that would not let the twin develop organically and form of its own time and experiences.
Tom stopped at one photo that seemed to be taken of Niagara falls. He put on a pair of cotton gloves and took the photo out of the plastic sleeve. He put on his glasses and stared at the photo to prompt the AI to examine the photo itself. After a moment Tom nodded his head and put the photo down onto the table next to the binders.
Tom continued with his work, and in the end removed five more artifacts.
The last one, a receipt, made sherry seem crestfallen.
‘What’s wrong with that one?’ She asked.
Tom Gave a little smile. ‘It’s a little too old, unfortunately. The prices don’t make any sense after inflation, it makes it seem too out of place.’
Sherry sighed. ‘I thought that would have been a clever one, a receipt for Frank’s Laundry.’
Tom said nothing. ‘Would you like me to put the declined artifacts anywhere?’
Sherry shook her head, shuffled them all together and slid them back into the bag. ‘Maybe I’ll try again next time.’
The AI sounded in the room. ‘Thank you for your patronage, Ms Taylor, but we kindly remind you that the forming process is a delicate initiative taken between our client and their digital twin. Digital Worlds, and its employees, take all efforts that they can to form your digital twin correctly. Your participation in this process by bringing artifacts only chosen in good faith and not previously declined, is absolutely vital to the process.
‘The formation process is both highly scientific but also extremely personal to your digital twin, and we must exercise all caution in preventing any disruption of your digital twin’s experience and growth. We ask you to take these artifacts home and please keep them there for your own personal attention. They have been declined and we ask that they remain for your own personal use.’
Sherry laughed. ‘Yes, of course, pardon my joke!’ She said to the room, sticking her tongue out and crossing her eyes in a display of absurdity. Her smiled disappeared. ‘I was wondering about that one, its from our second anniversary, which was much more important than our first - I don’t want to lose that.’
Tom picked up the two binders and asked Sherry is she was ready. She nodded her head.
The wall across from couch turned from its dim purple to a dashboard that looked a like a young woman’s mood board reacting to the the live experience of its owner. Difference feelings, thoughts and sensations flashed through the room on the screen in words, colors, sounds, and if the client requested it, smells. Smells were not always welcome, as the smells of Eden could be remarkably alien. Despite the constant formation of the digital twins to the experience of humans living on earth, the digital twin still lived its own life and to a great degree created its own world, independent of the rules of Earth.
To subject the digital twin to the same exact environmental experiences of the client would have created an uncomfortable experience for the digital twin. It would also be ironically unreal for the client, and therefore not adequate to any acts of synthesis in the future.
Formation was a delicate process of forming the consciousness and subconsciousness of the digital twin such that at the moment of synthesis the digital twin could not react to a profound growth in its psyche. The new thoughts and feelings that came to the digital mind could not be perceived as a transplant or a prosthetic - they had to appear to the digital twin as an experiential revelation. In fact, if the digital twin was spiritually inclined, it would appear as a spiritual awakening or religious touch. It could not feel like a replacement, but a sense of growth. Otherwise the results would be suboptimal.
Tom waited a little while before beginning the formation process. He would wait until Sherry said something, as he knew that she liked to watch and see what was happening. To perhaps even feel as if she herself might even be in EDEN with her digital twin, her husband. Sherry sat for an especially long time today.
‘Do you think it matters if we are on the same station or not?’
Tom didn’t know what to say. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I want to be close to him. I didn’t just love the idea of him, you know. It was his body, his smell, his breath.’
Tom paused for a moment. He looked at the wall in front of him, watching a machine’s thoughts and feelings skitter at the pace of a human across the screen. He still wasn’t sure what she meant- ‘Do you mean like the same folder? I am not sure that is how it works. Eden doesn’t really take up space, you know. It could be anywhere there’s electricity, really.’
‘No, I mean will we be on the same station, up there. How many server stations do you have up there now, and what are they odds that we will be on the same one?’
Tom had to think for a moment. He didn’t think that the question made any sense. All of those ones and zeros, magnetic pulses on conducting materials, the shapes and images, the words we connect to them all just for our sake, not the computers.
“Absolutely. I think that is a wonderful idea. Lets make it happen.’
Sherry smiled at him and grabbed his hand. She looked into his eyes for a few moments, then turned back to the wall displaying her digital twin. She nodded.
Tom stood up and went over to the wall. A slot opened in the wall at his waist. Tom opened the binders, took out each plastic sleeve one by one and slid them into the wall. The slot closed again, and he turned to look back at the digital mind being displayed on the wall.
After a few moments, the colors and flashing took on a simple pattern, like an old swell on a placid sea, lifting the digital mind quietly and then placing it down again, so carefully that only the inner ear might notice it happening. Tom wondered what it felt like to the digital twin. Did the twin feel the same queasiness that he felt watching it happen on the screen?
Sherry sat there, leaned back against the wall, watching her digital twin form with the new information, the feelings and objects that Sherry wanted to share with her in Eden. This other person, this her, this twin that one day Sherry dreamed of joining, of becoming. Sherry closed her eyes and smiled. “I wonder what he is doing right now.”
‘Having a great time, I am sure of it.’
‘Will he recognize me?’
‘How could he not?’
