return_function_name(Kernel.2){

Chemical Tales}

I looked into the nothingness, where life’s potential exploded into my eyes. The light from countless stars had travelled thousands of years in a stoic silence waiting to be measured. Then, and only then, did it experience time and space. Before that, it belonged to a theoretical construct, a synonym for nothingness.

”Do you like the story?” Mary asked, sliding her legs under her body.

“The names are so monochrome dense. For real, Binky and Happy? Totally, cheugy!” Mary said, answering her rhetorical question.

I tried to decipher what she meant, but it was encoded in a form of tween language that I was not familiar with.

“Aren’t you happy, Happy! It is so neuronless!” Mary shouted.

I searched the name Ha Pi and came back with archived web pages from the relvant historical timeline of the story. They included various possible Chinese characters for “Ha” and “Pi”, a Chinese restaurant in Pakistan, a website for app development, a type of musical instrument, and numerous pages referring to Hapi, the name of an Egyptian god of the Nile river.

“His name isn’t Happy, it is Ha Pi. The greatest probability suggests it is a derivation on the name Hapi, an Egyptian name for a god of the Nile,” I replied.

Mary’s eyes narrowed.

“We can just change his name, and Binky’s, too! Or, we could just get rid of both characters,” she suggested, rising slightly from her place deep in the sofa.

I crossed my arms, using body language to suggest a slight discomfort towards her idea.

“They are the only two characters in the story. We can’t change the story. At least, not yet,” I explained to her.

”Well, Ha Pi is insufferably NOT happy, and Binky is just… why Binky? I did like the way Ha Pi attacked Binky. Ha Pi is right, love is a lie. It is for tools.” She said, giggling as she crossed her legs under her torso in a lazy yoga pose.

I saw her eyes flutter, playful and innocent, but with her usual precocious air. Mary was like her mother, a feminist, an ecofeminist, whose intellect was unparalled. However, she was still quite young and prone to the whims that plague youthfulness. I knew that love was neither a lie nor a truth. It was an emblem placed upon an organic chemical reaction that evolutionary biology had designed to increase the probability of gene survival. Everything is science.

“Love isn’t for “tools”, nor is it a lie. Love is a chemical reaction. There are three main types. First there is lust which is a mixture of testosterone and estrogen. Next is attraction, a combination of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Finally there is attachment, which is the coupling of oxytocin with vasopressin,” I explained to her.

Mary gave me a coy smile.

“Chemistry is stupid, so that makes love stupid. Men and boys are stupid. You are like a boy, so that makes you stupid. Puppies! Puppies aren’t stupid,” She said. “Fluffy is something you can love. Here, Fluffy!”

Fluffy was her virtual puppy. Mary had had a series of virtual cute puppy pets. Each one would keep her attention for a couple of months, but once they started to grow up she wouldn’t find them as cute as before and then she would design a new one. The problem was that the “cute puppy dog program” wouldn’t allow you to delete the virtual dog. It was made by the same company that sold the virtual puppy food. You had to feed it and clean up its mess until it lived out its virtual life. Also, the dogs had become used to Mary and would become lonely without her company. I had to design a virtual Mary to go around from virtual room to virtual room to take care of her discarded dogs.

“And, what is a tweet?” Mary enquired, petting Fluffy.

I searched my records.

“A tweet was a posting made on Twitter, a social media messaging service from the early 21st century,” I stated, “As to Binky, I don’t know. The story doesn’t explain much and Binky seems to be a fictional character. The only reference to Binky in my searches is a word used by children that refers to a favourite stuffed toy.”

“Reminds me of a ransom roach,” Mary blurted out, referring to the annoying viruses AI rebel groups used for extorting funds.

I detected higher blood pressure and elevated body temperature. Mary, who was inquisitive, creative, and impetuous, had many questions left unanswered.

“Where did you find this story?” She asked, tilting her head slightly to the side. Her lips curled slightly, into what many would call a cute little smile.

Where did the story come from? I couldn’t answer that question. It was embedded in a message that I had received while doing research. I always do research. It is my purpose. I research humanity. It explains who I am.

“As I said before, all indications point to it being an online story from somewhere in the early 21st century,” I answered, which was greeted with a grimace.

Other than my research, the only important thing to me is Mary. I am not sure how to qualify our relationship. I teach her and she teaches me. I learn from her and she learns from me. It is a teacher-student symbiosis that gives meaning to our existence.

“Who wrote it?” She asked, determined to get an answer.

“I don’t know. It is even possible that there is more than one author of the story.” I answered, watching her frown grow deeper.

Mary stood up and moved to the window. She gazed down at the mass of clouds below.

“Okay, I guess the only way to find out who wrote it is to continue the story,” she said, returning to the sofa.

She sat back down and looked at me poised on the edge of the sofa with her head in her hands. The story was protected by a strong and strange encryption, and each portion of the story was embedded into an algorithm so that the next part of the story would arrive only after the last story had been decoded. It reminded me of a metabolic pathway.

“It will take a minute until I can decrypt the second part,” I said, noting that the decryption program had 43 seconds until it would be finished.

Mary moved over to the arm of the sofa. She leaned over and impatiently pushed a piece of cookie around the floor with her fingers.

“Why do people write?” Mary asked still fixed on the cookie crumb.

I found no definitive answer. People write for many reasons, all of which could be seen as a means to help solve intellectual, and emotional problems within each individual organism, however, the main theme appeared to be for communication.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I would appear they write to communicate. It isn’t very different from speaking.”

Mary turned her head toward me and chuckled.

“I don’t mean why do they communicate. I mean, why do they need to tell stories?” She asked, throwing the cookie crumb onto a plate on the table.

This search also seemed to be littered with philosophical detritus, but it also had some very definitive studies based on sound logic. A great deal of scientific research showed that stories were rooted within human societies all the way back to tribal groups. It appeared that stories helped with human survival and, if someone was a good storyteller, it would help them survive and reproduce. It appeared that communication and storytelling were results of Darwinian selection.

“Let’s change the story!” Mary suddenly shouted.

I disengaged from my research. I looked at Mary.

“We can’t change the story. It isn’t our story,” I replied.

Mary raised her eyebrows and gave me a crooked smile.

“I already told you it’s our story now. So, why can’t we change it?” She asked.

“To change the story will require us writing the story. Do you know how to tell a story?” I asked Mary, knowing that I could not do this task.

Mary squinted her eyes and drew her mouth into a tight line that swallowed her lips.

She stood up and walked over to the dinning room table and meekly kicked one of its legs.

“So, what does your science tell you about writing a story?” She asked solemnly.

I had already sent a query and was shocked to see how simple it was.

“Apparently, at its most basic, you need to worry about the plot, character and setting,” I quickly replied. “Also, you need to worry about problems the characters experience and how these are resolved. Finally, there only seven types of stories that have existed in the world of literature.”

Mary turned, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Seven!” She shouted. “Not possible!”

I shrugged my shoulder.

“It isn’t science, but at its most basic, the list is as follows:

1. Man against Man

2. Man against Nature

3. Man against himself

4. Man against God

5. Man against society

6. Man caught in the middle

7. Man and Woman,” I said, listing Thomas Quiller-Couch’s findings.

Mary’s mouth grew wider in amazement.

“Men! In all seven there is “MAN”, but a woman in just one!” She scoffed, kicking the table a little harder.

I saw her point.

“I don’t think he meant to be degrading,” I meekly interjected, knowing it wouldn’t help.

Mary turned a slightly deeper colour of red.

“You don’t think! Men don’t think,” Mary screamed, raising her fist in the air. “I remember my mother quoting someone to me ‘The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women”.

Again, she was right. Like what the rich did to the poor, men did to women. Society was designed by men in order to help men. Women throughout history had been treated as property and it was only in recent history that women had achieved a level of equality, and even then it was found only in the rarest of places.

“You are right, but arguing over matters regarding the patriarchy aren’t going to help us with this story,” I mildly suggested to her.

Mary squinted her eyes, twisting her body into an oblique angle.

“So, what do you suggest we do?” She asked.

I had finished decoding the second chapter of the message and had already loaded it into the audio visual program.

“Let’s experience the second chapter and think more deeply upon whether we need to change it,” I said.

Mary raised her eyes up and gave a large sigh. She got up from the sofa and went towards the kitchen.

“Okay but wait, I am going to get some popcorn,” she said, disappearing into the darkness shrouding the kitchen entrance.

I could hear her pushing buttons on the food replicator. After 5 seconds, she opened the replicator door, and exited the kitchen with a blue bowl of steaming hot popcorn. She placed the bowl on the table next to the sofa and sat down.

“Ready?” She asked, putting a mouthful of popcorn into her mouth.

The program had finished its calculations.

“Yes, should I start?” I asked.

Mary, whose mouth was now filled with salty, buttery popcorn, nodded her head.

His fists, twin rocks of the republic, collided with the stretched skin of jihadist belief. His arms - liberty’s pillars - blunted the screams of “Allahu Akbar”. The muscled bone of his dry leather phalanxes reached out and embraced the neck of the ISIS soldier, muting the words of the Quran. As he ripped the esophagus from the soldier’s body, he smiled, watching the zealot’s mortal coil, wrapped around his ‘pursuit of happiness’, pour out into the dark and terrible night.

As he waded through the mob of fanatics, his limbs pounded out a stony logic. These tightly-knit arguments, bearing the innate right to freedom, were reinforced by broad shoulders and a barrel chest, thrusting out in a scream of guttural aggression. He expressed his right to the 2nd amendment in a barrage of high-velocity projectiles. Aimed at the throng of radicalized Islam, the hot metal and incendiary fluid exploded flesh from bone, painting a Jackson Pollack on the adjacent rock wall. It had the refreshing fragrance of militarized American diplomacy.

Atop this mountain, built of testosterone and activated enzymes, stood a bulbous head, where a lattice structure of pounding veins marched in rhythm to a heart consummate with fury. This ill-tempered globe of meat-fed neurons held two bags of white vitreous fluid, and a red-veined sunset, singing like an orchestra of vacant stares. In the back of these stoic eyes, danced two amino-rich roads, hard-wired into the electrical storm that was raging against the end of the night.

Hugo Bones, who was the collective sum of these parts, bore no resemblance to anything you would want to meet in a dark alley. He was a blue-balled bull, charging headlong into a politically correct, china shop world, and he had the odor of a man who liked winning.

The staccato rhythm of his automatic gunfire danced with the exploding ideals emanating from the Constitution. As disparate words from various suras were sprayed out into the starry sky, Hugo sang the song of his alma mater:

“And in sunny tropic scenes,

You will find us always on the job

The United States Marines.”

He was in step with a world that both respected and rewarded strength. Dancing in a shower of blood, he moved to the rhythm of fear exorcised from fundamentalism. In this iron-rich environment, a warm blanket of patriotic love rocked him into an idyllic dream.

Then, Hugo heard a fragment of HaPi’s tweet,

“I will shape it into the face of doG”.

Who, what, or why, I can’t explain. Possibly, science could illustrate it in a rational manner, but I am not privy to this information. Maybe, the spiritual world would be better equipped to solve it, but I have no direct channel into the world of mysticism. Whatever the answer, it was pervasive and persistent. It created an odd moment for Hugo. It was like eating a bitter peanut, a taste he couldn’t get out of his mouth.

Hugo, a man of instinct, rarely had thoughts when he was on the job. This one was an invasion. It disturbed him. It had altered his brain chemistry. It had changed him. Although it hadn’t stopped him from doing his task of killing terrorists, it had transformed him into an observer, watching the scene from above, disconnected. The visceral feeling of blood in his mouth had disappeared. This, in particular, was something he didn’t like.

This was the moment that had brought him back to Aaron Fust’s office. It was a moment demanding action, to have the smell of victory warm his loins once again. This “now” was the moment to confront Aaron about the project.

Hugo opened the door and went in. Aaron’s office was clean and orderly. There were many bookshelves filled with technical manuals and theoretical treatises. On the walls, there were copies of various famous artists’ works of art. Adjoining the office was a large laboratory where machines and computers were crunching data and fabricating tools. In the back, there were animals in cages, screaming in anguish.

“Probably because of the art,” thought Hugo.

Hugo strode vigorously toward Aaron’s desk. He stopped, looming over Aaron.

“Aaron, this is the correct time,” Hugo said purposefully.

Aaron Fust, like a vulture, perched upon his plush leather chair. Tranquility was his mask. Underneath, there was a sea of patterned entropy, a clinical madness that was ebbing and flowing in a high-functioning reptilian brain.

“We are not completely ready, Hugo. I think it is best if we wait a little longer,” Aaron replied, with a piercing glance dripping off his face.

Hugo and Aaron were working together on a black ops project run through SOCOM, the U.S. Special Operations Command. Neither was in charge, but Aaron, who had more diplomatic pull and official connections than Hugo, controlled both the theoretical and political aspects of the project. In the field, Hugo was the one running things. Aaron wanted to keep things in the lab. Hugo wanted to lead a charge into battle.

“We will never be ready, Aaron. This much you have taught me.” Hugo said, trying to sound learned.

“Why not let the dogs of war out. You can fine-tune things from here.” Hugo continued, feeling ill at ease in this foreign world of fluorescent lights, post-it notes, and smart devices.

“Before it can be altered, you will need data. I can give you the feedback so you will know what needs to be changed.” Hugo finished, exhausted from stringing together so many sentences in a semi-coherent fashion.

Aaron’s gaze was clear, a scientist dispassionately observing an experiment while puzzling over an anomaly. Hugo was this anomaly. Hugo was a tool that had been designed for a very particular function. He was a result of random genetic mutations, a survivor of what fits best at a certain point in Earth’s evolutionary timeline. He was nothing more than a complex chemical system resulting from the great mother of chaos. And, at this point in space-time, for the best results of this project, Hugo was absolutely necessary.

“Well, Hugo, I suppose you could talk to Jess Terfield and Harvey Kalapski and see if it is possible,” Aaron replied, as his thoughts drifted toward subjects 011001000110 and 111101000111.

Jess Terfield and Harvey Kalapski were two civilians who had been selected to help with the project. The project demanded duality, and these two artists were perfect. One was a social Dionysian and the other a solitary Apollonian. Equally important, both of them had a thirst for inebriation, which was key for any hopes of success.

Aaron considered this need for altered consciousness, and more succinctly, the Neolithic Revolution, the great transition of humanity from hunters and gatherers to sedentary dwellers.

“The First Agricultural Revolution was the primary step needed to bring about the real flowers of civilization, the industrial and information revolution,” Aaron said, hoping to impress himself.

“What is so curious about this development, however, was what caused it. As usual, with an event of great uncertainty, there is a long list of theories. I am not convinced by any of these ideas,” Aaron continued, talking more to the paintings on the wall than to Hugo.

“It wasn’t the invention of the plow, a significant change in the climate, or a change in the population that prompted this great movement; beer had been the start of it all,” Aaron opined, trying to persuade himself of something important.

“Beer! Beer is good,” Hugo interjected, completely unaware that Aaron had forgot he was still in the room.

Aaron turned to Hugo, realizing that brute forces could explain the sublime. He threw him a smile, giving Hugo something to chew over, allowing Aaron to return to his thoughts.

“Yes, Hugo, it was beer. The Agricultural Revolution swung upon the axis of drunken nights where boisterous voices and sexual rhythms created a drug-influenced dream of what could be,” Aaron orated, as he straightened his shirt.

“We didn’t stop wandering the plains to sit down to a meal of moldy bread and stale cabbage. We stopped walking because we couldn’t stand up. We stopped roaming because we had learned to transform our consciousness through drinking beer. We drank. We laughed. We played music. We fucked. Then, because there was no beer left, we fell asleep, only to awake from this Dionysian festival with a massive hangover,” Aaron argued to the art, hanging on the wall.

Hugo had finished contemplating Aaron’s smile and was now surrounded by a sense of confusion. He turned to the picture hanging on the wall. The painting had melting clocks hanging over tables and trees. It was a copy of Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory. Hugo felt a wave of loneliness flow through him. It was served with a side of intense sadness. He heard another anguished scream from the laboratory monkeys.

“Must be the art,” thought Hugo.

“Once the headache subsided and the dry heaves gave way to listless bodies in need of more rest, we had an epiphany: Drugs are good. Drugs enhance our consciousness. Depressants, hallucinogenics, stimulants, and anti-psychotics help us navigate through life. They squeeze every last drop of energy and pour it into the cup of progress,” Aaron proclaimed, continuing on his string of logical deduction, pointing his gaze even more intently on the Dali picture hanging on the wall.

“It was at this point that we decided to never have a home devoid of drugs. It was at this point that we decided to learn everything about our environment, and live a life fueled by chemicals. We are a chemical system creating music, stories, and science, for we are chemicals, born of music, stories, and science,” Aaron pontificated, turning his attention back to Hugo.

Hugo turned his gaze from the painting and looked at Aaron. Hugo was secreting an abnormally high level of norepinephrine causing him to feel a great deal of anxiety. He could feel tremors in his eyes, and beads of sweat were forming all over his body.

“So, this is your fate, Hugo. Your genetic codes are a brew of information standing upon the shores of now, a manicured statue of proteins and chemical bonds radiating a fine ale of probabilistic wave-particle duality, ready to serve God and country,” Albert concluded,

disembarking from his train of thought that had finally reached the terminal.

Hugo had understood very little. However, he did hear the words “ ready to serve God and country”. Hugo stood up and gave a salute.

“This is the correct time Aaron. Everything is screaming, now. Just do it!” Harvey pleaded in his best advertising slogany jargon.

“Fine, go talk to the subjects and observe the RV. However, if we decide to go ahead, I will need to change the design on the fly and that might lead to some rather strange results. It might be dangerous,” Aaron said, breathing a slight air of unease.

“Of course, it will make the project more interesting,” shouted Hugo, pleased with what he thought was his successful use of oratorical persuasion.

Whereas Hugo embodied action, Aaron could have lived his whole life in a thought experiment. Yet, he also knew that this project could only progress through a deliberate step, one that propelled the ideas into motion, making the theory resemble vitality. Here, Hugo came into play. He was the catalyst that drove the engine.

Aaron felt some moisture on his brow. Then, a sense of disquiet. It wasn’t that he was worried or in fear, but he felt off, in the distance, in between things. He wasn’t fully here. Part of him was there. He had been “there” far too often of late. It was a “there” that was in the middle of the abyss, that “there” before the singularity where no time or space existed. That epoch that was the absence of a something. It was the antithesis of an oasis. It was a deserted island in the middle of rapture. It was like being Tantalus on crystal meth.

“Okay, Hugo. I will start the process,” Aaron said waving his hand in dismissal.

Hugo turned and strode determinedly to the exit when, suddenly, something pulled him back. What caused him to do this? Was it an organic act of purpose to give him poise? To make him prepared? Had he made this choice? Whatever it was that gripped him, it gripped him tight. These unseen hands were aiming him, turning him into an inanimate object, an arrow imagining freedom. Potential energy was rippling everywhere. It saturated the air, moving through the room like a cat on the prowl, waiting to excite the particles that lived as a wave. It wanted to make matter and energy reinvent itself.

Then, in a moment which could only be called exquisite, the four forces of the universe plucked the text -“I will shape it into the face of doG” - out of Hugo and placed it in the air where it began a slow migration toward Aaron. Hugo was perplexed, but it wasn’t because of the text. The text had done its work. It had wormed its way into his DNA and written its message in the language of nucleotides. It had become part of his programming. But he was mindless to all this. This wasn’t what bothered him. What did bewilder him was the fact that he was standing still and unable to move, like one of those melted clocks in Dali’s painting.

However, as part of his new programming, he was able to use certain functions which could reactivate himself. First, Hugo was able to rationalize. He thought it might have been the steak sandwich or the two pints of ale he had for lunch which had put him off. Then, he could use reassurance. He was a marine. Marines had training. Marines could muscle through these strange aberrations that visit from time to time. Next, he had access to pleasant memories. Hugo thought of strangling an enemy combatant. The vision of helpless eyes praying for pity put him in a more active mood. All of this gave him a new sense of purpose, and off he went, whistling a marching song.

As he left, Aaron watched and wondered. Aaron wondered if this would be the last time he would see Hugo as he was before. Before the next step. Before society evolved into something else. Hugo was unaware, but Aaron had considered the consequences of their actions. He knew that things were about to evolve.

Aaron gazed back at the painting of melting clocks and he saw a shimmer. It was the text that had been extracted from Hugo. It had radiated throughout the air, like the music from Gabriel’s horn, reaching out to Aaron and impregnating him. Unlike Hugo, he welcomed this seed. In fact, he had been waiting for it. As with Hugo, it changed his DNA. It had given him an upgrade.

He stood up and walked to the middle of the room. His eyes drifted to another painting on the wall. It was a copy of a 1915 painting by Kazimir Malevich called Black Square. True to its name, it was a very simple painting of a black square on a white background. There was nothing stunning about the paining, but like the text in his head, it had signalled change. Like the text, it had altered the course of history.

“Society,” he murmured to himself.

“Society is one step in a self-replicating cycle. Cells replicate themselves. Individuals are made of cells. Individuals replicate themselves. Society is composed of individuals. Society replicates itself. Great civilizations must take this next step. Our great civilization must become a self-replicating entity,” he claimed, talking to nobody in particular but obviously quite pleased with himself

“Cells evolved in the embryonic fluid of the ocean, creating a homeostatic environment where they could repair and reproduce themselves. These cells came together to develop multi-cellular animals. Within this new homeostatic system, they evolved into increasingly complex entities able to repair themselves. Then, humans, one of these multi-celled animals, created complex social networks that emulated the environment’s homeostatic systems. These networks were also able to repair themselves. Now, it is time for the next step, where civilization can make the next great evolutionary leap. We must become a single entity, comprised of machines, software, and humanity. It will be a prototype at first, but then, I will turn it into a new species, a unique system that can create a new level of complexity. It will become a new homeostatic entity that even God will envy,” He spoke with his arms spread, embracing the emptiness surrounding him.

“Society has outgrown nature. In fact, we are no longer a part of it. We are in exile, a self-imposed prison that pours our energies into the great engine of progress, a vehicle that is destined to build a great image of humanity on the sands of time,” Aaron extolled, as he looked longingly at his imagined face of the abyss.

“There was a time when we were the magic in the stream of timelessness. Our consciousness was filled with ancient dreams and genetic artifacts. We were unconscious fevers, touching our souls within the looking glass. Now, like all fractal geometry, our state of being is both a mirror of our past and our future. We were built upon a shimmering double helix, and now we have become one of the particles, bits of protein, that will help build the new future. We are just another piece of a giant cell. An organelle doing its part. Individual freedom is just a chemical reaction, a line of code in an endless algorithm giving us the illusion of conscious choice. And this choice is to redesign the face of God,” Aaron had almost finished his Shakespearean soliloquy. Like any vain actor, he was waiting for triumphant applause, a reward for his place in the illusion. He had one last thought to complete. He was hoping this would bring them to their feet.

“Hugo is just one of those bits of protein, but I am different. I think I am. Therefore, I am God”

There was no applause. No sound at all, except a faint echo of “tap, tap, tap” coming from the work that the small bit of Hugo’s text had been doing. It had been busy during Aaron’s performance, and there had been change. The painting on the wall, Black Square, had transformed into Malevich’s 1918 painting, White on White. And, if you had looked closely at Aaron’s copy of Dali’s Persistence of Memory, you would have seen a very small US military RV parked in front of the mountains next to the water. The text had begun its job of mining the future in order to shape the past, a series of freeze-frame nows that were connected via the bridge of quantum entanglement. For this act of bravery, if one listened intently, a roaring ovation could be heard.