Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future (9 page)

"So
how did you solve the problem?" I asked.

"We
decided it would be easier to build in all of these devices."
Linda answered.

"Build
them in where?"

"Inside
of us." Linda replied. "I know that sounds foreign, because
you've never thought of 'devices' in this way before. You have always
thought of devices being outside your body. When they are outside,
though, they are always getting in the way. You have to carry them,
you have to put them in pockets. You lose them. You have to hold them
in your hand to use them, and you only have two hands. If you build
them in, all of those problems go away."

"That
actually makes sense." I said. "The whole idea of using a
hand to hold a phone to your head seems awkward. But I have a couple
of questions. First of all, where are the devices? I mean, you don't
look lumpy or anything. Are they in your torso?"

"No,
they are not in my torso." Linda smiled.

"And
how do you push the buttons or read the screens?" I asked.

"That's
one of the most interesting parts about the Vertebrane system."
Linda said.

"What?"
I asked.

"Pushing
the buttons and reading the screens." Linda replied.

"So
how do you do it?" I asked

"Think
about it this way. What's the biggest problem with screens?"
Linda asked.

"I
don't know. What, they are never big enough?" I replied.

"Very
good. That's the biggest problem with screens. We can make screens as
big as buildings now, but they are really hard to take with you. In
any sort of portable device, the screen is always too small. And what
if you are walking?" Linda asked.

"Yes,
that's a problem. You can't see the screen if you are walking because
it jiggles too much. And you run into things when you look down at
it." I answered.

"Exactly.
So here is the simple solution -- what if you painted the image right
onto the retina?" Linda asked.

"That
sounds like it would work." I replied. "How do you do it?"

"It
turns out you can't do it." Linda said. "It just doesn't
work. You can try putting some sort of retinal projector in a pair of
glasses or something, but it gets extremely cumbersome. When you are
running the glasses still bounce a little and it is distracting. And
there is still no way to push the buttons."

"So
how do you solve the problem?"

Linda
took a deep breath, "I want you to imagine something, and think
about how your body works. What if you tapped right into the optic
nerves? What if you pumped images straight into the visual cortex of
the brain, overlaid on top of the scene coming in through your eyes?"

"You
can do that? You can tap right into the optical nerves?" I was
nearly speechless.

"Yes,
we can do that. We can also tap into the auditory nerves coming from
the ears, along with taste and smell nerves from the tongue and nose.
We can pump artificial sensory perceptions right into these main
sensory nerve bundles as they enter the brain." Linda explained.

"Holy
shit. What about touch?" I asked.

"We
handle touch as well. The way we do that is to hook right into the
spinal cord. That lets us pick up all touch sensations, and also gain
control of all the muscles as well." Linda said.

"What?"

"I
know it sounds farfetched. But we actually put shunts into every
nerve pathway heading to the brain. And we do that whether it is a
sensory nerve fiber heading toward the brain or a muscle control
fiber heading out." She explained.

"How
do you do that?"

"For
the spinal cord, what they do is they replace three of the upper
cervical vertebrae in your spine. Right about here." She touched
the back of my neck, and then showed me where on the back of her
neck. "That's where the computer system is embedded -- in the
three new vertebrae they install. There's also the power module and
the wireless transmitter."

"Inside
of you right now?" I asked.

"Right
here." She held the back of her neck.

"Why
is there no scar?" I asked, looking at her neck.

"The
surgical procedures in the Australia Project are just as innovative
as everything else." She said.

"Where
does the power come from? Do you have to recharge yourself every
night?" I asked, only half joking.

"No.
There's a fuel cell in the third vertebra, and it uses glucose in the
blood for power. It has a nice side benefit -- it helps you keep your
weight down. That's one reason why there are no fat people in the
Australia Project."

"Oh
my God. I knew there had to be a reason for that. I figured that
there were forced feeding limitations or something. No one could ever
go on a luxury cruise and stay thin."

"No,
the Vertebrane system actually takes care of your weight for you. But
that's a bonus. It has nothing to do with the real goal of the
Vertebrane system." Linda said.

"So
let me see if I have this straight. You are saying that surgeons
replace three of the upper vertebrae in your spine." I said.

"Yes."
She said. "Actually it is robotic surgeons, but yes." She
said.

"And
they sever the spinal cord and essentially reroute it into a computer
in one of those new vertebrae." I said.

"Yes.
Very good." She confirmed.

"And
they also tap into the major sensory nerves, like the optical nerves
and the auditory nerves." I said.

"Exactly."
She replied.

"You
are blowing my mind." I said. I had to close my eyes for a
minute. "Is that how you are wired right now?"

"Yes,
that is how I am wired. And let me tell you, it is fantastic."
She said.

"How
does it feel?" I asked.

"It
is very freeing." She said.

"How
so?" I asked.

"Let's
say that I want to talk to Cynthia. I can call her and talk to her.
Or I can send her a letter. To call her, I just think through it to
connect. Then it is just like we are talking to each other normally.
I hear her voice as though it is in my ear. What's happening is that
when she thinks about talking, the Vertebrane system intercepts the
signals and sends them to the network wirelessly. They are
transmitted to me, and my computer sends the words she is speaking
into my auditory nerves, overlaid on the ambient sound around me. Or
I can turn the ambient sound off if I want to. That's great if you
are in a noisy place."

"So
you can turn your ears off?" I asked. "That would be cool.
There are lots of times I have wanted to close my ears just like I
close my eyes."

"There
are a lot of people who meditate by turning off everything. They turn
off sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Their brains are completely
disconnected from the world. It is like you are floating in a
complete isolation chamber. I don't like it myself unless I am trying
to fall asleep, but lots of people swear by it."

"What
else can you do?" I asked.

"Everyone
listens to music this way. It streams from the network straight into
your auditory nerves. The sound is perfect. You can make it as loud
or as soft was you like. And it can always play in the background.
You just turn it down when a call comes in." She said.

"I
never thought about that." I said.

"Another
thing that Vertebrane can do is translate for you. If you are taking
a call from a person who speaks in a different language, the system
simply translates what they say into English and sends the translated
version in on your auditory nerve instead of the original version.
That way, everyone in the Australia Project can talk to everyone
else. Language is never a problem."

"How
smart is it?" I asked.

"It
is amazing actually. For example, let's say you are in a room with a
lot of people, and someone is talking too loudly and making it hard
to hear. You can ask the system to cut him out, and his voice
disappears from the audio track you are hearing."

"What
else can it do?" I asked.

"The
visual side is where it is the most amazing. It has different modes.
Remember when we were in the airport and you asked me 'How did we get
here?'" She asked.

"Yes."
I said. "But now I can see where this is heading."

"Right.
I simply ask the system where I am supposed to be for the flight, and
when. In my interface, the way the system tells me where to go is by
painting big arrows on the walls. No one else can see them, but when
I look at the world, I see arrows painted on the walls. And I like
lots of arrows so I never get confused. Then when we got inside the
plane and the seats were nearby, they glowed. That's how I knew where
our seats were. You can set up the interface in nearly any way. Some
people like arrows on the walls. Some like lines painted on the
floor. Some like a big golden retriever who walks in front of you and
then you follow. And it can be anything -- golden retriever, elf,
dragon, floating orb, whatever. Some people go for a voice interface,
where the voice tells you to turn left or right."

"As
soon as you mention voices, you know what I am going to ask." I
said. There was a chill running up my spine.

"Yes
I do. Let me be very clear on this -- this is not Manna, or anything
close to it. There is a huge difference between Vertebrane and Manna.
Manna tells you to scrub a toilet, and you have no choice. Manna
times you as you scrub it and shocks you through the shock collar
when you don't do it fast enough. That is insane -- it is no
different from slavery, with a computer system owned by rich people
as the master." She said.

"I
agree." I replied.

"In
the Vertebrane system, you are always in control. You can ask for
help -- directions for example -- and the system helps you. You can
ask a question and the system will answer it. You ask the system to
play a movie or make a call or whatever. You can even ask the system
to disconnect your brain from sensory input so you can get a good
night's sleep, and then wake you up at 7. The system will do that.
You are always in control of Vertebrane, rather than vice versa."
She explained.

"That
is good to know. And actually this is sounding very cool." I
said. "How do I watch a movie if I have Vertebrane?"

"There
are a couple different kinds of movies now. There's old-style screen
movies, and people still watch a lot of those because they are
classics. With Vertebrane you can sit down or lie down and the movie
plays through your vision system. You disconnect your eyes and all
you see is the movie in that case. Or you can have kind of a
picture-in-picture thing, where the movie is overlaid within the
scene that your eyes are naturally seeing. That way you can go for a
walk and watch the movie while you are walking. But all the new
movies are immersive now. You not only see the scenes, but you also
taste, touch and feel them. You are completely immersed in the movie.
Many of these movies are interactive, and when they do that they're
kind of a merge between a movie and virtual space." She said.

"Virtual
space?" I asked.

"Immersive
environments. Artificial worlds. Whatever you want to call it. We
call it VS here" She said.

"How
does virtual space work?" I asked.

"Virtual
space is an offshoot of gaming." She said. "You saw it in
the U.S. to some degree -- games got more and more realistic on the
screen. Now imagine a game world where it's not about screens and
stereo speakers. Instead, you are completely immersed in the game
world. It includes sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, and it is
totally realistic. You essentially disconnect your brain from your
real body and plug it into a virtual body in the game's virtual
world. Then people started creating virtual worlds simply for the
sake of creating them. You can experience just about anything in
virtual space now, and you can do it alone or with a million friends.
You can be Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, or a cowboy in the old
west or whatever."

"What
else can Vertebrane do?" I asked.

"You
access the network through it. Basically you can access any fact,
image, movie, song. You can also experience what someone else is
experiencing -- a person streams all their sensory data to you, and
you both experience it simultaneously. It can be one person sharing
the experience, or a thousand. Or you can publish an experience and
other people can play it whenever they want. Vertebrane also
exercises for you. And it records your entire life to the network, so
you can go back and review things that have happened in the past and
replay them. It can do all sorts of things."

"Wait
a minute. Your entire life?" I asked.

"Yes.
Basically your entire sensory feed, along with all your muscle
actions, get recorded every minute of every day. Then if you want to
go back and relive something, you can. It's like a complete diary of
your entire life." She explained.

"Is
that public?" I asked.

"No.
Well, sort of. There are the refs, but they are the only thing
accessing it besides you, unless you publish something." She
said.

"The
refs?" I asked.

"The
referees. They monitor things and prevent problems." She
clarified.

"How
so?" I asked.

"They
are like referees in any sport. They watch things, and flag you if
you break the rules or are about to break the rules." She said.

"They
watch everything?"

"The
refs are robots. They watch your sensory feed as it is coming in and
look for rule violations. For example, let's say you start screaming
obscenities at someone in public. The refs would flag that and detain
you. It's against the rules to scream at someone in public, mainly
because no one wants to be around when it happens."

"That
makes sense. Did you say they can flag you if you are about to break
a rule?" I asked.