Sensory Cracks

Young geneticist Anja, accompanied by her Shih-Tzu, set out on Klavebod Brygge for her usual afternoon walk. Almost widowed by cars, the street of the Danish capital was abundantly populated with cyclists and guarded by modern, glassy buildings such as Krystallen. She admires her cheerful, floral, sleeveless dress, specially chosen to change her mood, in the asymmetric building with a rhombic skeleton. Shows off my legs, she thought, but immediately her eyes were drawn to the reflection of the slate paving Otto Monsted Plads, the minimalist square nearby, so she took a few steps in that direction. She looked at Krystallen from that side for the first time and found it haughty, propped up on one elbow, boasting of the hundreds of windows that mirrored the area without fail. In one of them, located close to the ground, he saw a column of German soldiers marching. They had the Hitler symbol on their sleeves. She even thought she heard the sound of their footsteps and, inexplicably, her heart began to fill with fear. Get dizzy…

After a few moments, she recovered, but the soldiers had disappeared as if by magic. What a nightmare! I might as well pay a visit to my doctor, the third millennium blonde thought to herself and allowed her lower lip to curl up. Her puppy, King, was looking at her puzzled, so she decided to keep going, ashamed of her moment of weakness. Her blue eyes, which betrayed an intelligence without limits, admired the futuristic Lille Langebro bridge, a bridge that looked like a bow thrown over the harbour.

They arrived at the towering building dominated by green and white (semi-transparent) glass called BLOX. The generous construction had adopted the shape of the Greek letter PI to allow a road to pass through it without breaking it. Huddled near the port, it proudly reflected the buildings of the city, and the light bulbs on the ceilings of the rooms created discreet paths of light. Anja saw a swastika and Hitler in one of the rooms talking to Heinrich Himmler and Josef Mengele! The years seemed to have passed slowly over their faces. She closed her eyes to erase the image, but King growled and that reinforced her belief that she was not having visions. She instinctively pricked her ears and caught, quite surprisingly, a few fragments of the dialogue:

“You did a good job when you created, together with the Japanese, these nanobots to stop ageing.”

“They don’t do only that, Herr Führer! They sharpen our senses, give us increased strength, strengthen the body’s resistance” – Mengele intervened.

“And the most important thing, they only respond to orders given by The Führer!” Himmler added deferentially.

“Heil Hitler!”

Joseph Goebbels had entered, and Hitler immediately questioned him.

“What’s up with Artificial Intelligence? Did you convey to those damned samurai my order to destroy it?”

“Sure, Herr Führer!”

“And? Did they execute it?”

“Hirohito told me that you are allies; therefore, you cannot order him. He strongly believes in this technology and will not give it up. He asked me to pass on to you that they have already built a hundred thousand robot-soldiers controlled by Artificial Intelligence.”

“Damn it! Now, is he threatening me? Without our breakthroughs in genetics, he wouldn’t have done anything with his nanobots! Does he really not understand how dangerous Artificial Intelligence can be? What if it takes control of the nanobots?”

“Especially those who provide us with free labour…” dared Himmler.

“Remain silent! What if it hears us right now?” Hitler let out a twitch of his moustache and pounded his fist on the table.

“Herr Himmler, have you forgotten about the global communications network? Of the fact that everything is connected to it?” Goebbels also ducked…

Anja felt sick. She was stunned – just couldn’t believe it. What kind of delusions are these? And how come she understands German? The beautiful blonde closed her eyes and did some mental exercises to regain her self-control. When her perfect face opened, the characters had disappeared, and King had calmed down and settled down at her feet. Look at Byfraktal, the strange sculpture of polished stainless steel and fibreglass that towers over the islet of Slotsholmen. The giant robot-insect seemed to move as the sun’s rays, which sometimes crept timidly through the grey blanket, reflected in the steel. Nearby, there were several wide wooden steps (located on the water’s edge), used for sunbathing or for sitting to talk. Not far away, the sloping black granite facade of the monumental Black Diamond, the newest part of the Royal Library, glistened in the sunlight. Everything is in its place. It’s clear that I need to see a doctor, Anja thought to herself. She looked once more at the monolithic, ship-like building, which carried hundreds of rooms and had been torn apart by a road, but she was stunned. A swastika flashed in her mind and she saw how Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Robert Oppenheimer were just coming out of Black Diamond. She followed them, out of reflex, with her gaze to the wooden steps on which they sat down. Although she was close to them, they seemed to ignore her.

“No one can hear us here. What are we doing, folks?” Bohr asked.

“The correct question is: can we (more) do something? That’s the question”, Einstein interrupted, gesturing.

“The answer is: nothing; it has been given ever since we came into the hands of the Germans. I cannot in any way reconcile my conscience after having contributed, along with you, to the manufacture of the atomic bomb. Can you rest easy after helping them win the war?” Oppenheimer wants to know.

His lower lip and hands quivered discreetly, and his voice carried harsh, unforgiving inflections.

“Did I have a choice? Each of us has been betrayed by someone. You, as you know, were worked on by Max Born. He helped the Nazis kidnap you. They jumped Albert from England and me from here.”

“Children, stop fighting. That was a long time ago. You know very well that we had a choice between death and a possible eternal life, which eventually became a reality. What would any sane person have chosen?” Albert interjected. “We are only kept alive to help in the event of a conflict with the Japanese.”

“Yes, but we will soon become dispensable. You saw that the Japanese created Artificial Intelligence to help them build the atomic bomb. I think we are facing a new war”, says Bohr.

“Listen to what I tell you”, Einstein said. “The Japanese are sure of them, but if Artificial Intelligence takes control of the nanobots… Remember, they are in every human.”

“Especially those who create virtual lives”, adds Niels…

Anja felt a soft, wet tongue against her face and offered a warm, friendly smile. She was lying on the floor,s and King was looking at her with moist eyes. I must have passed out, she told herself, but she immediately jumped up as if she had been burned. The steps, deserted, were caressed by the heavenly star. I have to go to the doctor tomorrow morning, she promised herself. She headed for the place not long ago occupied by the famous people and groped it. Feel the rough, damp wood in places. A few passers-by looked at her strangely, so she resumed her walk, ashamed, watched by the invisible eyes of the surveillance camera discreetly installed on a tree. She arrived at Nyhavn and admired the picturesque canal that ran bravely through buildings with colourful facades (brick, cream, pink, turquoise, brown, ochre, blue, grey) for a few hundred meters before coming to an end. Dozens of masts joined them in a true visual symphony. The blonde gets excited and lets herself be absorbed by the wonderful scenery. The Nyhavnsbroen Bridge, thrown over the canal, was crowded with tourists and the purple water was lazily crossed by long, wide boats, which carried real cinema halls. The Great Anchor Memorial, at the end of the canal, was being ridden by several children, seeming to forget that it came from a proud frigate. Before leaving the place, Anja took one last look at Nyhavn. How had she not noticed the first time? All those who populated its shores were blond, with blue eyes. Not knowing what else to believe, she let herself be brought back to reality by King’s barking, which drew her attention to the fast-approaching dusk…

They set off with quick steps, speeding past the Gefion Fountain and ZinkGlobal, the robot sitting down and looking deep in thought. Hideous, with its entrails exposed, it looked like a Japanese. And it begins, she said to herself and turned her head to look away. She glimpsed Langeline Marina, the marina for light craft. It was dusk, and the forest of parallel, bald masts was projected against a cloudy, pinkish-yellow sky in the distance. She felt a chill and headed with her Shih-Tzu towards Kastellet. The citadel, built in the shape of a star with bastions at the corners, was surrounded by a generous moat with water and a dike. The trees and the sky reflected darkly in the water of the canal, which she crossed on a wooden bridge to enter the fortress. The predominantly brick, long, typically Viking buildings that resided in it yard welcomed lines of people at the gates, its regular residents, through its doors. The night fell suddenly and deeply, and the Dane could no longer distinguish anything and let herself be seized by a deep sleep…

Anja heard the siren sounding the wake-up call. It was still dark outside. What the hell? Did I set the alarm wrong? She threw her glance around the room, and it came back with the image of a pitiful room with crumbling walls, in which countless beds were lined up on three levels. She lowered her eyes and saw the grey inmate uniform covering her. She touched her – it was real. Her thoughts froze, dumbfounded. The indifferent roommates stared blankly through the single robot supervisor as it entered the building. The blonde realised, annoyed, that she knew what it was going to say, in German:

“Make the beds well if you want to keep your hair. Then line up to go to the bathroom and then to work.”

When she received the confirmation, her eyes flashed intelligently, and an unbounded anger took possession of her. Across the globe, hundreds of eyes shone intelligently, in tens of thousands of labour camps…

***

Two bits collided not by chance, as if beating the cube, on one of the endless trunks of optical cables…

Tags: English Section, George Dimitriu, Kalpabiswa, দশম বর্ষ প্রথম সংখ্যা