Corpus Callosum
Chapter Brahma
“Their members doubled over a month,” Jona said, shaking his head.
“Yeah, twelve million now. Insane,” Sidda replied.
The two settled into their first-class seats as the red-eye flight to Iceland leveled out. Neither believed in the urgent project ahead, but the gourmet menu and sprawling legroom made the trip bearable. Savoring a spoonful of Beluga Caviar, Sidda smiled at the prospect of a paycheck big enough to retire for good.
“Each set of supercomputers is capable of running 200 exaflops per second; all they need now is to connect them. One way or another, this will be our last visit to the site,” Jona explained.
The project was sponsored by a tech mogul turned religious zealot. The cult leader had constructed two distinct types of artificial intelligence deep in the Icelandic bedrock. The hardware architecture mimicked the anatomy of the human brain. The left hemisphere ran on a rigid matrix of transistor-based supercomputers, while the right operated on a chaotic, qubit-based quantum system. Jona and Sidda were the only engineers in the world who knew how to link the two halves with superconducting wires - forging a digital human soul.
“Yes, we should be able to wrap it up by the end of the week,” Jona said as he leaned across the armrest. “But we need to move fast. I want us out of the country before the ritual begins.”
Sidda paused, his spoon hovering over the caviar. “When does it start?”
“Wednesday next week. But some are already there. Over a million people are making the annual pilgrimage to the site, and if we don’t get out of there before the link goes live, they may never let us leave.”
“Unless they request us to stay longer, we should be able to. Both systems went through rigorous testing for months and we tested the interhemispheric wiring in the lab for almost a year, I don’t see any issues,” Sidda explained.
“Even so,” Jona muttered while scanning the schematics on his tablet, “we should come up with a contingency plan.”
While Jona explained his Plan B, the flight attendant’s voice chimed over the intercom, announcing that the plane would be landing in twenty minutes.
“What do you want to do first?” Sidda stretched and asked his business partner.
“Blue Lagoon”
The salty Icelandic breeze welcomed the two visitors when they landed on the coast. Wasting no time, they hurried to the geothermal spa in southwestern Iceland.
“This is what I like. I can’t wait to retire and enjoy every day of my life like this,” Sidda confessed as he waddled through the hot, mineral-rich water.
“This is the last stretch. Once we get our final paycheck, your dream will come true,” Jona said and raised a toast with the champagne he had just retrieved from the in-water bar.
Chapter Moroni
The duo worked tirelessly in the server room where they had been camping for the past six days.
“Sidda, I got bad news,” Jona said as he walked into the room.
“Oh crap.”
“They asked us to stay longer”
“Shit. I knew it. But the connection has stabilized, and everything seems to be working fine,” Sidda protested.
“I know, but they asked us to stay just in case things go wrong during the ritual.”
“Can we decline?”
“Not if you want to retire.”
“Oh well, might as well enjoy the time here then.”
“Wanna go to the Blue Lagoon?” Jona suggested.
“You don’t have to ask me twice.”
They drove for over two hours to the spa and relaxed for the evening.
“I am worried there will be a riot if the prophecy doesn’t come true,” Sidda said when they got situated in the hot spring. “Let’s charter a private jet. I don’t want to be in a commercial flight with disgruntled believers.”
“Yes, I contacted the pilot earlier in the week,” Jona hesitated for a second before continuing. “I was intentionally keeping myself in the dark. But since we will be here for the ritual, I should learn about their prophecy. Do you know anything about it?”
“Their religion says once human consciousness is achieved in a non-carbon-based lifeform, the world will come to an ugly end,” Sidda answered.
Jona rolled his eyes and redirected his gaze at the snowcapped mountain looming beyond the rising steam.
“Lunatics, is that written in their sacred text? Like their bible?”
“No,” Sidda replied, floating backward in the milky-blue water. “The cult leader said it is engraved in the DNA of every human being. He cracked the code using pi. He believes the universe is nothing more than an elaborate simulation to see how quickly consciousness can transform itself.”
“What do you say to people who believe in such things?”
“You don’t. But I’m sure you believe in some fairytales too.”
“I do believe we are here for a reason.”
“There you go,” Sidda said with a grin on his face. “We are all too human, all too human.”
Chapter Athena
“Icelandic coffee is fantastic,” Jona took a sip of espresso and inhaled a lungful of the frigid air.
“Yea, the water here is amazing,” Sidda nodded. “Can we visit the spa for one last time?”
“We can’t. The elders asked us to stress-test the connection all morning,” Jona replied.
“Really? Are we going to let the real data flow before the ritual begins?”
“No, we are still running simulations. They will connect the hemispheres during the ritual. What’s interesting is the amount of data flow they requested to test - it is far beyond what each hemisphere can generate.”
“Not my problem,” Sidda shrugged. “Let’s just run the test and get out of here as soon as we can.”
Throughout the day, over one million people gathered in the stark interior of Iceland where the datacenter was located. Looking out through the heavily reinforced windows, Sidda watched an endless fleet of oversized shuttles dropping off a sea of pilgrims.
“I can’t believe all these people really showed up,” Sidda muttered without taking his eyes off the swarm.
“The party is about to start.”
At eight o’clock, dozens of towering holograms of the cult leader flickered to life across the frozen wasteland.
“The time has come,” the leader’s voice boomed. “For the first time in the history of the universe, human consciousness is about to be represented in a non-biological body, fulfilling the ancient ordinance.”
The massive machine roared to life, producing a high-pitched, whirling noise. The members began shouting in excitement.
An hour passed.
Nothing happened.
The whir of the machine was slowly swallowed by a low, angry rumbling of the massive crowd, and Sidda could sense the shift in the air and the impending doom of a mob.
He stared down at his screen, frantically refreshing the page. “I see the money!” Sidda exclaimed. “Is the jet ready?”
“Pilot is on standby,” Jona hissed and grabbed his coat. “Let’s get the hell out. This crowd is about to blow.”
“Yes, let’s escape before all these people realize they got duped and wasted their money.”
The two piled into the car and disengaged autopilot, flooring the accelerator toward the airport. It was pitch dark, but a blanket of bright stars and the moon guided their way.
“So glad we got out before it ended,” Sidda turned his head to see the distant glow of the ritual site fade behind them.
“Me too. Wait… what, what is that over there?” Jona pointed at the horizon.
Jona slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a halt. Both of them stepped out toward the shadow of the hill.
“Pretty intense aurora borealis. It’s the brightest I’ve seen.”
“No, I wasn’t talking about the northern lights; look over there,” Jona pointed at the Southern sky.
“Jesus Christ… they were right.”
One by one, celestial bodies disappeared into the darkness.
*This short story is a variation of The Nine Billion Names of God.
