David Marcus Santoyo
Legacy Portfolio c. 2005
Sample of Original Writing
"Prima's Children" by David Santoyo
written 2003
Prologue
Part 1: Xavier
The facility had been finished almost 150 years ago. “Built to last” was an understatement, as the only thing that could destroy it would be a direct hit from an asteroid the size of a small mountain. Dr. Xavier Clark was confident about that boast. The facility that the young genius had designed and delivered by age 50 was all but a monument to his failure now.
If an ancillary system went off-line, a redundancy system would kick in. The original problem would be resolved by small automaton bots issued from the lower levels of the gigantic underground facility (see "Bit" under character menu). His design was a hair below flawless. A smoothly running machine that no longer needed its creator.
Xavier’s purpose and self-value were built upon this ingenious facility, which had served humankind for the past century and a half. Yet, at some point, he developed contempt for the facility and its echoing empty halls of dark, deep, endless levels. If he wasn’t its architect, he’d be lost as he moved through it. It started some time ago; starting before the passing of his longtime wife and assistant, Cassandra. It started before the population had dwindled to a silence. The contempt was more of a hatred now.
His floating vehicle purred up the facility’s large central tube and made its way topside, through the large round portal, which lead directly into the high domed shaped communication center. Xavier mechanically performed his ritual of perusing the frequency scanner’s indicators. Why he did this, he did not know, for he would be notified immediately if the scanners had picked up any short, middle, or long wave activity. Continuing his ritual, he switched over from the real-time view graphs to the daily, monthly, and then yearly views. It had been 12 years since he had seen any activity. The sun scanner logs showed that anomaly to have been a direct correlation to the cyclical sunspot peak. That had long since disappeared. He quietly redirected his floater and made his way back down to the lab. He had taken to sleeping, eating, working, and relieving himself all within the confines of the smallish room. More recently, the floater provided for all of that. This was all relative as he no longer needed to move about the facility.
Xavier switched the holo-view of his floater over to the Prime Code and reviewed his final coding instructions. His mind drifted through sequences of instructions, derivations, theorems, postulations, and techniques. The holo-viewer directly synthesized them seamlessly into the algorithmic matrices of the Prime Code.
Regarding his self-value, Xavier had recently come to terms with himself. No longer using the term “my” when he thought of the catastrophic failure. He had come to realize that it had been “our” failure. This lightened his burden a little bit. The situation he found himself in was not his fault. He had only tried to help; ultimately failing in those efforts. He was grateful and felt fortunate to have been the preeminent mind of his time. Xavier denied himself any regrets of not having the accompanying fame that is associated with such brilliance.
Xavier often thought that only intelligent design could have produced a mind like his; exactly when a mind like his was needed. Though he could not fathom the ultimate purpose of fulfilling that need in hindsight of this outcome. This did not, however, relinquish him from the depth of his internalized pain or his share of the failure. Yes, he had failed in the task that had been set for him. That task was altogether too much, even for a great mind like his. So, this remarkable research facility built by the remnants of a hoping humankind, to unravel its most devastating mystery, became the sole reminder of all those who had fallen into oblivion behind him.
~~~~~~~~~~
Part 2: Xavier’s Theorem
It had been accepted that evolution came in quick spurts to adverse situations, and the adverse situations, in general, occurred between long periods of time, but nobody expected "devolution" to do the same.
"Devolution", as Xavier termed it, was the
“de – evolution” of a species. More precisely: The unwinding or degeneration of a species' genetic coding.
His early research had shown that certain cases of late in life, spuriously manifested retardation had a congenital nature … not hereditary but related to the gene. These cases soon became widespread and cleaved into a multitude of various manifestations of gross physical deformity leading to death.
Xavier had linked these devastating and terminal diseases, to the failure of entire sequences of the human genetic code and genome structure. The mechanism of chromosomal replication became suspect but was too random, early on, to isolate.
In his time, because of advances made in the sciences and because of new technologies that had emerged, the average life span had doubled to 190 years. By our 100th century of 10,000 A.D., the human condition had been completely radicalized. Humans no longer had to physically manipulate their environments. We disappeared into small spherical shells called “floaters” which hovered from place to place. Distant travel was no longer necessary, as virtual networks integrated directly with the cerebral cortex. Arms and legs became shorter from atrophy and the torso became spherical due to "zero gravity envelopes” or ZGEs. ZGEs were the by-product of floater technology. ZGEs were created inside the floater shell, where the human body spent most of its time.
Curiously the spread of the genetic disease did not become a startling phenomenon until widespread infertility became the norm. In one technologically prolonged generation, the world population had been decimated. Humans became living time-bombs; waiting to externalize mutated and deadly genetic instructions. Wars came to a halt, manufacturing, exports-imports and mercantilism soon became things of the past. Entire cities became graveyards by the effect of disease coupled with the loss of society’s infrastructure. Civilization could no longer be supported. Political and national borders vanished as whole countries became destabilized and fell into oblivion.
That is when the underground research facility was conceived. The idea was quickly ratified by the remnants of our societies. All resources were funneled into its creation.
Xavier made a simple observation: The more technologically advanced a country had been, the more affected was the country. That realization had been the basis of the formulation of:
Xavier’s Theorem
“The long term survivability of a species is inversely proportional to its dependence on technology.”
And its corollary:
And its corollary:
“The genetic mechanisms, of the survivability of a species, need continual adversity so that these mechanisms sustain within the genetic coding. Removing the adversity, ultimately, removes the genetic coding which sustains the survivability of said species.”
Ten thousand years of technological dependency had been enough to cause the failure of these mechanisms, which ensured survivability ... our survivability.
~~~~~~~~~~
Part 3: Beyond the Fear
If Xavier could sit on a chair, or if Xavier could reach his head with his arms, he would have been sitting with his elbows on a table grasping his head in despair. For despair was all he felt now. All he could do was lay, like an egg in its nest. He had become one with his floater a long, long time ago. He took a brief glimpse of the genome being processed by the Prime Code; without a thought he switched the holo-viewer off. He had finished his work. He felt the despair lift ever so slightly. The Prime Code had been running now for 144 hours, passing all the final tests, no further tests were required. Xavier’s genius was now contained within the 3-dimensional holographic matrices of the Prime algorithm. The vestiges of humanity were now “hers”, The Prime Code's. The Prime Code would finish what he had started and would finish what he could not.
He now took leave of all his responsibilities, no longer carrying their weight.
He remembered Cassandra and his deep and profound feelings for her.
He remembered his youth, his father, his mother, his brothers, and sister.
How short his two hundred and some years had been. Throughout his life he oscillated between laughing at the idea of God and feeling that some God was laughing at him. He hovered to the glass that separated his lab from the corridor. Across was the DNA repository where the remains of his wife had been carefully stored and sealed. His eyes focused on his reflection just inches away. He murmured the words, “at least I won’t have to bury myself.” He said it again, but this time louder, for no one to hear. He joined with that idea of his Creator and began laughing.
In that moment he thought of all the countless lives that had passed before him. Lives like his, that had never been recorded or remembered. Each life with its own struggles, passions, defeats, love, wonders and purpose. He sobered with the thought ... "All of it is gone".
He looked closer at his reflection and thought he could see the death that was certainly moving through his cells at that very moment. But no, it would not happen for him that way. He would not die a painful death. He had diagnosed himself long ago and knew that his God had at least given him a death without suffering.
Judicious that was, for he had seen and experienced much suffering in his life.
He knew in which cell the degeneration would start. He thought he could feel it now. He thought his breath became slightly less effective, and his lungs worked slightly harder to extract the oxygen from each inhale. He knew the hour that it would come but, although he tried, he could not calculate the minute.
He knew in which cell the degeneration would start. He thought he could feel it now. He thought his breath became slightly less effective, and his lungs worked slightly harder to extract the oxygen from each inhale. He knew the hour that it would come but, although he tried, he could not calculate the minute.
So, Xavier waited.
As he waited, he attached an intravenous vacuum to its counterpart in his arm. He did not have much longer.
Xavier never liked the idea of suicide, but it was necessary to extract the living sample for his repository, she might need it.
His thoughts snapped to the Prime Code. Had he missed anything, had he miscalculated or forgotten? Had he balanced the ancillary systems? Would the geo-therm units hold out? Would the short-term backup power last long enough?
The Prime Code had the parts, but that was all. Nothing more. This was it.
Well, it was just too damn late. What he did would either be enough, or it wouldn’t. There were too many other factors beyond his control to worry about now. There were too many variables that any one being could fathom.
In his life, Xavier had studied life so acutely; he had acquired so much biological knowledge in his great pursuit to restore our failing genetic code that he had overlooked one last possibility. He only saw it when he came to terms with the failure of reconstructing life as he knew it.
Yes, he had failed.
In his life, Xavier had studied life so acutely; he had acquired so much biological knowledge in his great pursuit to restore our failing genetic code that he had overlooked one last possibility. He only saw it when he came to terms with the failure of reconstructing life as he knew it.
Yes, he had failed.
Yes, he understood that.
He marveled at, and yet hated his answer to that failure: Non-biological life might have a chance, but only if over time it could become sentient.
He marveled at, and yet hated his answer to that failure: Non-biological life might have a chance, but only if over time it could become sentient.
In its own turn, maybe one day it would also create life of its own ... biological life ... human life ... just as biological life might ... must now ... create it.
The vacuum switch actuated as he reclined the floater to a corpse position and did the only thing he could:
“Our Father, who art in Heaven,
hallowed be thy name …”
Here is a sample from "Prima's Children": A story of earth's future.
Copyright David Santoyo, 2015. All rights reserved.
Copyright Victor Leonardo Santoyo, 2015. All rights reserved