By the mid-21st century, science, technology and the collective intelligence of the Cloud had reached the point where startup companies could emerge and become mega producers in a very short time. One of these companies was started by a maverick genius, like so many others. Noah Lansing, a college dropout who, using his skills with genetic manipulation, developed a way of manufacturing food from basic elements and life forms like algae and plankton. Soon after starting the mega corporation, Food Genesis, Incorporated. FoodGen grew from his garden laboratory to plants the world over. This allowed local production of cheap, tasteful, healthy and attractive food so convenient that it could be carried without refrigeration and eaten like snacks for the growing billions of restless, rapidly moving bucket list humans. Or served hot or frozen in liquid, gaseous or solid form in many incantations. Some joked about, "Soylent Green," but the food was no joke. It rapidly replaced almost everything people ate. As ubiquitous as 20th century Big Macs.
Using FoodGen.com, for sale and distribution, billions around the world were buying food like they had formerly ordered delivered pizza for pennies, arriving within minutes through multiple channels of supply, rapidly making most forms of agribusiness obsolete. New textures, flavors and appearance were being produced weekly, giving customers an insatiable variety of food choice unheard of before. Of course, Noah Lansing became a trillionaire overnight when the firm went public and he began looking for other ventures to invest his wealth in.
One of the things that Noah was interested in was the concept of singularity in machine/artificial intelligence. The time when, it was believed, that machine intelligence would surpass human intelligence and begin replicating itself. This concept violated the notion of God in control of the universe and disturbed many people thinking that robot alien ethics would eventually rule and/or eliminate us. But others argued that if we were ever able to leave our solar system and move out into the universe, we would have to do it with or as superior beings to ourselves. Those beings would be without our frailties built-in from our evolution on earth and its very narrow niche of life support based on 1G gravity, oxygen, water and Earth's food chain. Lansing had already broken that food chain and was most eager to find a way to the stars before the century was over.
It had been theorized that the singularity would happen in the 21st century when the Turing Test of machine intelligence would be achieved by a machine like a computer. IBM had already embarked on its Watson project to do just that at the beginning of the century. Noah Lansing saw that test as obsolete and devised the idea of a Genesis Test where a machine hominid, when compared to a human, would be indistinguishable. To make the effort worthwhile, he established the Singularity Prize, offering $1 billion to anyone who could produce a hominid that would pass the Genesis Test. The race was on…
Like most millennials, Toler Gursky was the only son of a mixed immigrant family that broke up when he was three over political and religious disagreement. His mother worked in the United States State Department as an interpreter/analyst and his father was a Silicon Valley coder/hacker who garnered high salaries as he worked on proprietary software for major companies as a freelancer. Toler's mother tied him down with foreign language tutors and cultural activities when he was in DC and his father, absent most of the time when Toler was playing in his warehouse crib in San Francisco, always gave him the latest electronic toys. Little Toler was especially enamored with robots his father gave him to play with. It wasn't long before Toler was taking them apart to see what made them tick.
But, it was the rooftop solar rain garden for the sustainable loft building that really got Toler's attention, when sent there to play rather than on the mean streets below. In the streets he would've learned socialization instead of examining plants under toy microscopes that were as good as the real thing and using electronics from his father's workshop to do experiments on plant growth before he was five. About that time, Toler discovered Khan Academy and began teaching himself nearly everything on the Internet. By the time he was eight he was taking graduate-level online courses in biometrics, computer science, microbiology, political science, astrophysics, and botany. There seemed to be no subject matter that Toler couldn't understand and absorb very quickly. His photographic memory helped him image almost everything he experienced.
In short, Toler Gursky never went to college or even participated in all of the school things that would make one a well-rounded, socialized individual. But it didn't matter. On any scale of measurement, Toler Gursky was a genius before he ever did anything that would indicate he was. He started making patents for little gizmos in spite of his mother's insistence that he get schooling and culture when he was in DC. Toler would at least have some peers in the advanced gifted private academy that she spent so much money trying to get him to go to. But Toler found his classmates boring and much rather spent his time online with professors and researchers on their papers and ideas. Most were most willing to enter into discussion with the young prodigy because he immediately understood their concepts and helped them often with their own research. On his own website, Toler began to attract attention for what he posted.
By 10, Toler learned of the Lansing Genesis Test and Singularity Prize and immediately contacted Noah, announcing on his website, Gursky.net, that he was going to win the prize. Amused, Lansing played along until he realized that the young man was dead serious and showed promise of being able to actually accomplish the prodigious task. Well-known corporations, namely Google, IBM, AT&T, Tesla, Oracle, Amazon and Facebook had shown interest. As well, some lesser-known Russian, Chinese, Indian, Israeli, South Africa, German and Chinese firms joined the race. Finally, smaller firms began forming partnerships for the race. Where national pride got in the mix, countries began to back some of the projects. Competition for the Prize began to dwarf the race to see who would get to Mars first. Nothing had heated up like this since the Space Race during the Cold War in the 20th century. Only this one was white-hot when reputations were at stake.
About this time, Toler's father acquired a defunct winegrowing, drought damaged operation in the upper Napa Valley and father and son moved to the isolation and opportunity available there for the young man to stretch his wings and start building prototypes of his ideas in the abandoned buildings on the site. Working almost entirely online, Toler's father was always available to help out, but stayed out of the way as his son started to acquire licensing for some of his gizmos. Licenses began providing him with a steady income that would be the envy of any entrepreneur and very soon surpassed even his father's income. Time magazine featured Toler Gursky as the entrepreneur/inventor of the century when he was 12. Some scoffed, but there was no denying his accomplishment. Before long, the former wine operation resembled Menlo Park during Edison's heyday. Soon, while Toler still welcomed collaboration, he was forced to provide high security to keep the meddling nosy media away and his ideas from jealous rivals for the Prize.
The essence of Toler's project was his discovery of a simple interface between analog living chemical reaction thought and digital computation, the Holy Grail of the Singularity. He patented the micro, nano level device when he was 13 quietly and kept that under wraps from all enquiries, not licensing this breakthrough to anyone or publishing anything about it.
And then, Gursky set about a task that no one else had achieved before either, his clone made entirely from his own DNA enhanced. Unlike natural identical twins, Toler's created twin was identical in every outward way, even very slight facial idiosyncrasies that allowed distinguishing one identical twin from another. For example, the fingerprints of the clone and its retinal scan would be identical to his. The big difference between this clone and him would be under the skin, in the genes and in the enhanced brain of the clone.
It was not easy. Toler failed to get results on many embryos to the point of nearly giving up when he was 16 years old and had gone through 66 generations that he had to destroy because of their flaws. The failures really hurt him every time because it was like killing his own brother when pulling the plug on what seemed like a viable clone gone bad. While humans, even himself, were filled with inconsistencies and flaws that made them human, Toler felt that he could settle for nothing less than perfection. As he entered puberty he began to think about women more than he wanted to and had to constantly fight the urge to create a perfect female partner as a side venture. But Gursky knew that he had to stick to the task at hand if he was going to finish while still alive.
The breakthrough came when he was able to grow whole body systems that were enhanced genetically to be much stronger and more resilient than his own. For example, while growing the individual bones for his skeleton, instead of iron and calcium creating his bone structure, he modified the gene to incorporate titanium and potassium creating bones that were 10 times stronger than his own, yet identical in shape, size and function. Toler grew organs that were enhanced to function at higher capacities, enabling the ability to breathe at altitudes higher than 50,000 feet, breathe oxygen from water, filter toxins from air and resist most allergens, as well as a variety of air mixes that might be available on other planets.
Cartilage between the bones was enhanced with naturally derived plastics to make it more durable and prevent arthritic conditions. Toler insinuated spiderweb DNA into muscles, including the heart, along with blood carried bots to repair almost any part of the human anatomy he was building from scratch in a tub of fetal umbilical fluid unlike any nature ever created. Lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas, arteries, veins, and even nerves were all grown to exacting specifications from his own gene spliced DNA. Toler's crowning achievement was an identical brain enhanced with digital/analog interfaces, along with nano level processors, sensors, transmitters, receivers and massive storage units. All this making the clone have hundreds of times more brainpower than even his maker. It was scary work, but Toler felt compelled to push on and complete the task.
The crowning achievement was a skin that was so identical in appearance that it was impossible for the naked eye to tell the difference. Even Toler was shocked when his identical twin was given the signal and rose to greet him for the very first time. A smile came over the clone as he rose from the fluid, wiping it off his face and brow with his hands and then reaching out from the tank to shake his creator's hand and say, "Hello, I'm Toler Gursky. It feels good. You must be Toler as well?"
Toler was both relieved and shocked. "Yes, I am. It looks like I've got a lot to learn from you."
After seven years of continual work, shunning the rest of the world except to extract the necessary information and elements he needed, Toler rested. He took his brother out into the dry, warm California afternoon and they lounged in a grotto drinking some of the leftover wine from the vineyard, now nicely aged.
Toler Gursky 2.0 not only had all of Toler 1.0's memories and research in his vast memory resources, but he was connected directly to the Cloud all the time, enabling him to draw on any information available in the world by merely mentally requesting it in nanoseconds. Their conversation tended more toward recreation and inspiration rather than work. 2.0's considerable physical characteristics didn't even have to be tested. Intuitively, 1.0 knew how they would perform from tests he had done to the components during their growth.
Short of flying, although he could leap over 70 feet without injury and run in bursts up to 60 mph, for all practical purposes, Toler 2.0 was a superman in every sense of the word. He could record everything he saw. And had infrared and x-ray vision, as well as a visual acuity both microscopic and hawk-like. He could hear things 5 miles away and in frequencies that ordinarily humans couldn't hear. 2.0 could filter out the background noise so that he could focus on a conversation in the next building if he wished. Toler 1.0 found himself learning from 2.0 as 2.0 worked with him in the laboratory to fine tune and even enhance his capabilities both remotely and through microsurgery. He immediately upgraded himself to Toler 2.1.
It was time for Toler to come out with his creation and reveal him to the world. At this point, no one knew but Toler's father and he wasn't talking. He had cut ties with his mother and hadn't been in DC for five years. It wasn't because he wanted to abandon her, but because he was afraid she would make his work too political. Now it would be, regardless. Toler made a call to Noah Lansing on his private line. When the holograph appeared, Noah was shocked with what he saw. "Toler… Toler… Is that you? And who is that with you? Damn! Do you have a twin?
Toler 1.0 spoke while 2.1 just chuckled and shook his head. "Well, technically… Yes. But this is my creation I've been working on all these years for the Genesis Test. Do you like him?"
"I was expecting a hominid that looked human. But, dammit Toler, I wasn't expecting one that looked just like you! Can I talk to him?"
It was 2.1's turn. He smiled and laughed heartily, so uncharacteristic of the serious Toler Gursky. "What did you expect? Did you expect me to be anything less that what you wanted? I'm ready to take your test. I understand that the Genesis Test is supposed to be quite difficult. But my brother here did a great job on me and I think you're going to be quite surprised."
Noah had never seen Toler so self-assured before. He knew he was speaking to the same man, but there was something undeniably different about this brother, this twin brother that looked uncannily like the Toler he knew, but lacked all sense of humility. Strange. He thought for a moment, and then spoke. "This is quite a surprise. It will take me a week or so to gather the troops, but let's plan on meeting at my headquarters in San Francisco next Thursday at noon for lunch. We can commence with the test at 1 pm and should be over by the end of the afternoon."
Both Tolers responded in the affirmative with, "I'll see you on Thursday at lunch," in unison. The deal was set. One billion dollars was on the line. Much more was at stake. Toler 1.0 knew it, but Noah Lansing hadn't gathered it yet. Things were about to change in the world they knew that would be almost incomprehensible. But first, Toler 2.1 wanted to look around. To experience.
Using Toler 1.0's helicopter, they headed north to the coastal redwood forest and then on up the Oregon coastline to Crater Lake where they spent the night breathing the cool evening air and relaxing under the stars with fine wine by the campfire. Toler 2.1 was taking it all in… Experiencing what he already knew. Flexing his muscles and testing his limits. 2.1 peered at the heavens and told 1.0 what he saw. Already, he was devising new theories about the universe as he pointed out Pluto and an even larger planetoid just beyond with their importance to humankind for the upcoming race to the stars. "You see, my brother, those planetoids and planets…and there are many in the Kuiper Belt, will provide us with the raw materials not only to make our solar system safer for us, but provide us with what we need to go beyond anyone's simple earthly dreams. I'm already thinking of some promising planets in Goldilocks zones within a mere hundred light-years or so from here."
"How do you know all this? Toler 1.0 held his glass up, looking at Venus through the glass, hoping for some magnification. The only planet he could see in the sky and imagined what it would look like on another star system. What would it look like in orbit with Earth, terraformed to match Earth’s parameters? He found what 2.1 was saying quite simple to understand, yet amazingly profound.
"This information has already been gathered or imagined by the Egyptians and Mayans. It just wasn't within the human capacity to plan until now. I have explored astrophysics and science fiction. I find astrophysics to be quite primitive as it is now known and practiced. And, I find most science fiction laughable. What we will find in the stars is nothing like what they have dreamed from our earthly, violent genetic heritage. It is only natural to project from what we know from our violent history, not what is really there in the future waiting for us."
"So you think that other planets and life forms won't be dangerous?"
"Oh, they will be exceedingly dangerous, especially their life forms. You already know about the dinosaurs. Humans and dinosaurs could not exist on this planet at the same time. Dinosaurs had to be destroyed so that small mammals could begin to gain a fragile hold of this planet from the vicious reptilian predators that were everywhere. But… Intelligent life forms are different. They have ethics for behavior. I believe they are out there to be found or they will find us. I see my task as helping everyone here find them and learn from them much sooner. There are those that will be alien. But they will be of inferior intelligence, still in predator mode and easily managed, similar to the way we humans have mismanaged almost all other life on this planet, Earth." Toler 2.1 took a long sip on his wine, stared into the firelight, and sighed.
Toler 1.0 understood the feeling in his own way.
The next day, the brothers flew by Mount Saint Helens and up the Cascades to Mount Rainier. Toler 2.1 predicted that Rainier would erupt very soon and greatly endanger and damage Seattle and its people. They flew into Canada and spent the next evening that night in Banff. From there, they flew to Glacier National Park. Toler 2.1 created a hologram showing the way the park was in 1900 with 20 more glaciers and much of the entire region under ice. It was an entirely different place.
From there, the twins flew to Yellowstone and spent the next night. 2.1 was pleased to see that the animals there were as he expected, roaming on their migratory routes in and out of the park for centuries largely unmolested. He also predicted that Yellowstone would explode in a catastrophic blast that would directly affect half of the United States with destruction and the world with at least five years of volcanic winter from all of the dust and gas spewed into the atmosphere. Toler 2.1 sighed again and said, "I would suggest a massive evacuation. The bulge of lava is very close to breaking through the crust, perhaps within 100 years. Another reason why we need to create or reform planetoids in our Goldilocks zone. It is entirely possible within 100 years."
Their last stop was the Grand Canyon. "The Yellowstone explosion will bring great changes here. The canyon will not be the same after a great flow of lava follows the canyon's course." Toler 2.1 offered as they sat in a room by a large window overlooking the great chasm.
Toler 1.0 was in awe of his alter's insight. He wondered what his twin brother would tell him next. But then, he knew that 2.1 was speaking in geologic time rather than immediacy. While there was some urgency to avoid catastrophes large and small, 1.0 thought that 2.1 would easily be able to prioritize and plan ahead. He will make us safer. 1.0 thought.
Finally, they did an aerial tour of the California national parks including Kings Canyon, Sequoia and Yosemite. Toler 2.1 worried about the fate of the great redwood trees. "They will have to be saved," he said admiring their longevity, “but they are now in peril.”
Although they could have, Toler 2.1 had no desire to see cities or farmlands during his week of experiencing. "Those are all temporary," he remarked in passing. "We will make what we want of them like we always have."
They returned to the workshop for a day of tinkering where Toler 2.1 made a number of corrections in errors in some of the gizmos that Toler 1.0 had created and patented. 1.0 was amazed at the speed, simplicity and efficacy of the simple corrections made. He blushed when he saw them, having not seen them himself. Something that 2.1 was capable of ribbing him about, but only returned a wry smile instead, like the big brother he had become.
While Noah Lansing had been taken aback by the hologram of the brothers, he was even more surprised when they walked into his private dining room on the 70th floor overlooking Baghdad by the Bay and the Bay. And, he immediately realized how identical they really were. It was only in conversation that it was obvious that one of these two, without any identification to identify who was who, was much more intelligent. He was also a much better conversationalist, and had an aura about him that was unmistakable. Secretly, Noah thought. I wonder what he knows about me? I would ask, but I'm afraid he already knows and he's probably listening in on what I'm thinking right now. Lansing shivered at the thought, but tried to keep his composure as Toler Gursky 2.1 spun tales around the lunch table as they conversed. Very soon, the panel of 10 distinguished moderator/judges arrived and were introduced. Once again Toler 2.1 charmed them with intriguing tales as they ate.
One o'clock arrived too soon but they had to leave the table and go to the laboratory on the 51st floor where the test had been meticulously set up. Both subjects were labeled to tell them apart. The first test was anthropomorphic. All of the visible identification parameters between the two Tolers were identical: fingerprints, retinal scans, facial digital mask, height, weight, and even DNA, with the exception of gene tweaking that still did not make them less identical under standard practice. That might have to change.
X-rays and MRI showed a different bone structure and many nano electronic components throughout the entire body implanted in critical places. Blood pressure and heart rate were identical in some cases and better in 2.1's case in others. As was blood workup. Toler 2.1 easily passed the identification as a human stage way beyond any expectation. It was shocking to those doing and monitoring the tests. They couldn't believe what they were seeing in the results.
When the tests of physical characteristics where complete, the results were even more astounding. In strength, flexibility, vision, hearing, endurance and other tests, Toler 2.1 greatly exceeded 1.0 even though 1.0 scored very high on most of these parameters as being quite physically fit, in good health and strong. 2.1 had abilities that didn't seem possible in a human body and were more like specialized single function robots could do. He was something entirely new. They were becoming believers.
A standard IQ test was run. Toler Gursky 1.0 scored an impressive 168, eight points higher than Einstein and had been estimated to have. Toler Gursky 2.1 scored a perfect, unbelievable, 300. Everyone gasped when they saw the results except 2.1, who only smiled politely and nodded. The same was true of a battery of tests on subjects ranging from music, fine art, architecture, medicine, philosophy, engineering, mathematics, etc. While Toler Gursky 1.0 scored impressively on these tests like he always had, in every case, Toler Gursky 2.1 got a perfect score on every test as though the test creators were being mocked for their inability to test him.
Thus concluded the Genesis Test proving that Toler Gursky 2.1 met the criteria of the test and was due the Singularity Prize sought by so many others, so far behind. The accomplishment hit the news feeds almost immediately and spread worldwide while Noah entertained the brothers on his yacht, cruising the Bay while watching the sunset through the Golden Gate as lights in “The City” came on in all their twinkling glory and color on a glorious evening without the usual fog rolling in.
The brothers returned to the vineyard workshop and 2.1 began grand plans to revamp the place, buy other properties and build other facilities in an initial attempt to cure the world's ills in short order… Climate change and global warming were first on the list, followed by disarmament, clean water and the Mars initiative. But most tasks would be done simultaneously, employing millions worldwide and improving the economies of many countries and their citizens.
In spite of his great intellect, Toler Gursky, now made 1.1 by tweaking and implants from his brother, still felt totally inadequate when around 2.1 and began to wonder what his purpose was anymore. Within a year, he had built a retreat in Patagonia and moved there. Two Tolers was redundant. One too many. He let Toler 2.2 take over and was never heard from again. Rumor was that he committed suicide, but no one ever really knew.
By the end of the century, using genetic material from the best and the brightest all over the world, identical 2.5 brothers and sisters were created in the thousands who had full capability to reproduce. From one such coupling Toler Gursky II 3.0 was created. He was leading an expedition to a Goldilocks planet on a star system 32 light years away while identical planets of earth size and composition were being constructed in Earth orbit within easy range of the planetary shuttle. The night sky began to reflect them like additional moons, but with the spectacular qualities of the original blue marble.
On to the stars for the Citizens of Sol was just around the corner.
Copyright 2017 © Ronald W. Hull
8/15/17
