Chapter 2: The Gen Mod
Waking up was becoming Ethan’s favorite part of the day. Lately, he found himself waking to the tail end of a dream. The dream was so engaged or engaging that it seemed to follow Ethan into wakefulness. These dreams were different from the ones he usually had. He was an active character in his other dreams. There were people, and he was interacting with them. These were what Ethan called dreams.
He didn’t know what to call these dreams he experienced upon waking. They came to him symbolically in the language of logic. As the dream unfolded a complete truth was revealed to Ethan, and it often felt like there was something in the dream with him, directing his focus and leading him to a more complete understanding. It was like he had a companion in there with him. Ethan found he didn’t require guidance. The dreams were instantly self-explanatory, just like a proper metaphor. When he became aware he was watching one of these dreams unfold, he tried to hold onto it, but forgot it every time. This didn’t bother him too much. He was sure these were things he already knew, but only circumstance could bring them to mind.
Ethan watched his dream unfold. He already had comprehended the essence of the metaphor in the imagery of the dream. Now he was trying to figure out how to remember it. He failed. He was awake and the dream was gone. He stretched and let out a groan. After another moment, he farted.
“Boy, that was a good sleep,” he thought, as he lay in bed feeling comfortable and content. He lazed around for about fifteen minutes, before he felt pangs of hunger, and got up to join Dually for breakfast.
“Morning”, Dually greeted Ethan as he came into the conservatory. They were reading a newspaper and had a cup of coffee beside them. Prepared by Dually, Ethan’s breakfast was ready and sat on the table at his place. Dually always knew when to have Ethan’s meal prepared. By applying predictive habits, and monitoring his sleep cycle, Dually could predict exactly when Ethan would come in for breakfast.
“Morning,” Ethan replied, easing into his chair and grabbing the glass of orange juice from the table.
“Did you have a good sleep?” Dually asked
“Oh sure,” Ethan replied.
“Good,” Dually replied, then waited until Ethan was more settled and eating his breakfast.
“So, what’s up for today?” they asked, glancing at Ethan from over their newspaper. The newspaper Dually was reading and coffee beside them, served no other purpose than to bring a sense of familiarity and comfort to Ethan’s environment.
“I don’t know,” Ethan replied, yawning. “Probably go over and give Leita a run for her money”.
Leita was Ethan’s girlfriend. In many ways, she was like Ethan. Neither one of them was overly involved with AI or Virtual Reality. They liked to remain grounded in the real world. That’s probably why they were so compatible. Ethan enjoyed being with Leita, and spent quite a bit of his time with her.
“You’re disgusting!” Dually chided, but not harshly. “I think I’ve seen dogs with more tact than you”.
“Ruff!” Ethan barked, but the thought of Leita was now on his mind, and a surge of testosterone ran through him.
Ethan was always in the mood to get with Leta, and why shouldn’t he? As mentioned, Dually kept him in top physical condition. Biologically, he was a young man and felt like one too. He was always horny. Basically a walking hard-on.
He looked like the kind of guy who had his fair share of testosterone. He was well over six feet tall, and had a beefy, muscular frame. He was a good looking guy too. He had a perfectly symmetrical, rugged, manly face, and calculating, laughing eyes. He was always smiling, and disarmed both males and females immediately with his cool, engaging attitude.
As soon as he started thinking about her, Ethan wanted to see Leita. Beautiful Leta. There was something about her that set him on fire. She was fire. Her body could have been athletic if she ever did anything athletic, but she didn’t, and so it was a little jiggly, but only in the right places. She was still young and youthfully thin, except for her ass. She had a big ass, and it in particular, jiggled. Although not obvious, Leita knew what to wear and how to get her jiggling ass noticed.
Other than her attention drawing ass, Leita had fairly small, perky boobs she never restrained with a bra. They drew attention too, with her nipples pressing against the fabric of her t-shirt. Everything about Leita drew attention to her. It was all in the way she moved. She oozed sexuality
Leita telegraphed who she was, very clearly. Her outfits, usually jeans and t-shirt, were timelessly casual and reflected her personality perfectly. Timelessly beautiful, she took things as they came, and never got too excited. She had a disinterested cool about her that Ethan found compelling.
Probably the thing that attracted Ethan to Leita was her chubby cheeks and the childlike look of innocence often on her face. She looked like an angel. Often Ethan would catch an expression on Leita’s face, and he saw the little girl she used to be. That’s when he wanted her most.
Ethan started thinking about Leita’s smell. There was something compelling about her smell. It drove him wild, and when he was going down on her, he wanted to wear that smell, perhaps to warn others to stay away from her. No sex bot could replicate Leita’s smell. It was sensual, organic, and primal. As soon as they were together, Ethan wanted wild, animal sex, so he could capture Leita’s smell. They always did, and when they were done, Ethan felt like a conquering beast.
“We were talking about the Enlightenment yesterday”, Dually interrupted, cutting short Ethan’s sexual wanderings. “You requested a ‘review later’ on the causal factors that led to the tipping point of the Enlightenment, especially the part about the ‘Super Dicks’, as you put it”.
“Oh yeah. Do you have that ready?”
“Of course. Would you like to review it now”?
Ethan stretched comfortably, not entertaining the idea much.
“You know, Dually. I think today is going to be about Leta. Maybe tonight or tomorrow”.
“Certainly. By the way, do you remember us talking about a new gen-mod that provides you with a full spectrum of emotional consciousness? You asked to be notified when it came out of beta. It’s available now. Are you still interested”?
“What was that again”?
“It’s a genetic modification designed to activate emotional genes in you that are dormant or tend to be underutilized. It was designed to help develop emotional understanding that leads to Self-Actualization. You, yourself have mentioned you sometimes question the depths of your empathy. If empathy is an issue, the modification will activate the recessed genes and provide greater context to your life”.
“Will it change me”?
“Almost certainly,” Dually replied. It will give you a well rounded and grounded perspective on life”.
“Almost certainly,” Ethan thought. “Everything was almost certainly to a robot”.
“I don’t know. I don’t feel I’m missing much. I’m probably alright”.
“Where you are now, is where you begin with this modification,” Dually continued. “Any changes to your perspective will be recognizable and consciously made by you. All the mod will do is provide you with a fuller canvas from which to look at life. Right now you’re missing context in your perception. The mod will enable you to access a fuller range of emotions. You will see more, and be more capable in judging your experiences”.
More! Ethan loved the idea of more. He always wanted more. In light of it having everything he could dream of, he found the one thing the New World lacked was more. Maybe because it offered everything, Ethan felt there could be more over the horizon. He hungered for things maybe unknown, but unavailable to him now.
In addition, he was curious about a few things regarding himself which the mod might help with. One was the empathy thing, Dually mentioned. If something bad happened to someone, even Leta, it didn’t really bother him. He tended to look on these things from a detached, curious perspective, but not to the extent they provoked a reaction from him. He might pay closer attention if he stood to gain from it, but nothing more than that. He didn’t feel he was lacking anything by not having empathy. Still, he was curious about the emotions it produced in others, and wondered what it was all about.
The other, and most important thing Ethan wanted more of, was his memory. He couldn’t remember anything before or leading up to the Enlightenment. He didn’t know who he had been or what life he led. He didn’t know anything about himself. The same could not be said of Leita. She remembered everything from before the Enlightenment.
Although unfortunate, Dually told him his memory loss was a result of the choice he made, to wipe his memory before entering the New World. Many people chose not to retain their memories at that time. Having not transcended, many of them had their own reasons not to remember, and opted to have their memories recorded and then removed. AI considered not to remember a human right, and respected the person’s choice to remove it. Now that some were starting to wonder about their past, AI didn’t really go out of its way to help them find it. It felt returning memories was a violation of personal choice. AI would assist in retrieving memory by assisting a person with an historic search of pre-Enlightenment, but Ethan found this to be an arduous and unfulfilling process. He still did it though.
He was studying Pre-Enlightenment history hoping something would spark a memory of who he once might have been, but he wasn’t coming up with much. He wondered if the mod might help him find his memories?
“So what you’re saying,” Ethan asked. “is I’ll Actualize if I take the modification”?
“Not necessarily,” Dually replied. “It will provide you with the emotional intelligence you require to Actualize. It’s still up to you to do it”.
“But, it will give me an edge”?
“Almost certainly”.
“Hmph. What can it hurt?” Ethan thought.
“It’s not going to change my personality if I don’t want it to?” he confirmed with Dually.
“How could that happen?” Dually replied. “Of course, emotional episodes can trigger an elevated genetic response that stays once activated, but that would be exceptional. The thing to remember is, nothing gained is ever lost, but you’ll decide how you want to look at it”.
“And I can have it removed if I don’t like it”?
“Absolutely. We can reprogram your genes to their original state, if you want. Another benefit of this modification is it will deactivate genetic dispositions towards health problems. You’ll be much healthier”.
“Well now”, Ethan thought. “A better mind and body. How can that hurt”?
“You know what Dually, I’m in. Give me the mod”!
“Activating now,” Dually replied.