In the beginning, God created the earth and rested.
Then God created man and rested.
Then God created women. Since then, neither God nor man has rested:
****
“That’s it!” exclaimed Boran as he ripped a report from the printer and took it over to Norm, who stood observing ‘The oven’ an immense machine Norman and Boran had developed and built. Norman went over to a computer consul and confirmed the print out information.
‘Programme complete and ready for access’
A beaming smile came across his face.
“Well old friend, after all these years at last we have the information we require to help humanity”.
Norm picked up his mobile phone and dialled a number.
“Norman, it appears that Theory has finished
“Great dad! I’ll grab the others and be right with you,” said an exited Norman Jnr.
“Now my friend” said the old professor to Boran “our work can begin.
****
The twenty years from 1982 saw an amazing transformation in both Cambodia, and Let-cum-baan. There were now 70 inhabitants, some of the old citadel citizens had returned, mainly technicians and scientists, as they knew they could learn much more from Rumble and Ngem than any other human being could teach them.
The citadel now had modern domed buildings and powered by hydro–electric, methane and solar with plastic fullerene coloured panels that blended in with the green tree canopies, thus invisible from the ground and air, which gave enough electricity to sustain a large city, let alone a village of seventy. They had created an eco system with sunlight and rainfall, regulated within the cavern as the pastures and orchards flourished with fruit and flowers. Cows and sheep grazed in the fields all happy and contented. Domestic fowl scurried around being chased by the town’s dogs and Jake, the first cow joining in with the chase. All the animals had been genetically modified and produced from inseminated hosts.
“You added dog DNA in with that cow Jake” Roth used to joke with Boran.
“I bet if it had a 'lipstick' it would be licking it" added Roth. (‘Lipstick' dogs todger)
At night the ceiling of the cavern would be transformed by plasma screen pictures of the night sky, filmed from the outside so ever changing. The laboratory, now a glistening square structure the size of a cinema, contained rooms full of equipment, electron-microscopes, enhanced and modified *magnetic resonance scanners*, Visual Reality computers and other homemade machines. The laboratory was well technologically advanced on anything in the world outside. The cave mouth had an electronic shutter camouflaged to look like rocks, fifty-foot from the entrance, designed to make the cave appear as a dead end. It also had an intercom, night vision monitors and C.C.T.V cameras, to deter any unwanted intruders. An elevator had been installed against the side of the precipice, large and strong enough to hold heavy machinery, so getting equipment and tools to within the cavern was a lot simpler. A faster elevator was added to the back of the lab and the entrance to Ta prohm temple and both entrances could be monitored, and operated, from the monitors scattered about within the citadel. The Ta Prohm elevator still had its original stones structure, so it didn’t attract attention, especially now the tourists came to the area. Two small monorails ran along against the walls that could rapidly take a person up to the sentry ports on the cave sides, an advantage point for overseeing machinery that came and went into the cave.
Due to the rapidly changing information technology, satellite, mobile communication and faster high storage computers, Norman and Borans’ research, went along at a feverish pace. Cambodia now had banking institutions, which had allowed Rumble to gain access to his fortune and, with the help of his adopted son Tighe, managed to acquire all the best and most modern high tech gadgets and equipment they’d required. Normans work in specifying and identifying genomes had taken a rapid upturn, and with the new magnetic resonance imaging technology, they could now categorise the DNA a lot faster than the old x-ray system could.
***
In 1999 Normans’ beloved wife and junior’s mother, Theary, passed away, struck down by liver cancer, despite Rumbles research and treatment at cellular level. The cancer, a particularly virulent form, spread rapidly and took Theary.
Rumbles and Ngem’s sons had been studying in America and became geniuses in their field of computer science. They both had reputations for being leaders in this field and both had been headhunted after finishing university by IBM to head their research and development. Norman Jnr and Tu had returned to the citadel when Theary had died. Norman Jnr had noticed his father looking strained, ‘too much work’, thought Jnr, but when he tried to convince his father to leave the citadel his father said,
“Now is the time to stay and work, if I had worked faster your mother would still be here,”
Norman Jnr knew his father felt guilty and blamed himself for Thearys death.
Norman Jnr and Tu had always been fascinated by their fathers’ research with DNA, neurons and brainwaves, which accounted for their interest in computer technology. They thought that they could combine the two sciences.
“What if we could develop a machine the same as a human brain?” Tu once said
“Maybe someday we will,” joked Norman Jnr.
Although only teenagers when they made that remark, now adults, they seriously considered that, with the rapidly advancing computer technology and their knowledge of their fathers work in the field of Cells and DNA, their thoughts for creating a human brain computer was no longer a pipe dream, but maybe a possibility.
Theary’s death bought the families back together, the son’s had not been back to the citadel since they had left for the U.S six years earlier Both Norm Jnr and Tu felt at home, especially being re-united with their older adopted brother, Tighe, who they had not seen for so long.
Tighe, now a colonel was ecstatic to see his geeky brothers. Norman had been proud of his adopted son, he owed a lot of the technology and equipment that he now had at his fingertips to Tighe’s arm twisting and political connections.
****
Tighe had left the citadel and joined the Government forces as a foot soldier in 1982. Due to his courage and dedication to his task, he quickly scaled the army ranks, and with the money that Norm had given him, bought himself a captain’s rank and then a major and after 15 years of service, became a Colonel, and an active member of the CPP (Cambodian People’s Party). He met and toured the country with Hun Sen, the prime minister who put Tighe in charge of his security. He assembled a crack team of Commandos to serve as bodyguards, all willing to lay down their lives for Hun Sen and Colonel Tighe if necessary.
Tighe never married, but had a lot of ladies. He frequently visited the citadel to visit his adopted family, especially Theary and eat her pumpkin filled with egg custard, his favourite desert. He, along with the other former inhabitants of Let-cum-baan, had never told anyone about its existence, not even Hun Sen. He had pulled his political clout to ensure that Rumble got everything he needed for his research.
Several weeks after Theary’s funeral, the two boys returned to their jobs at IBM and Tighe returned to duty. The life seemed to have been sucked out of Professor Norman Rumble and he continued with research at a frantic pace, but followed a different direction. He was getting old and he knew that unless some miracle happened, he could not complete his work in this lifetime, but he didn’t care as he now had nothing better to do.
****
Four years after the death of his wife, Norman, engrossed in research was disturbed by a buzz on his intercom that led to the elevator in the temple.
This was usually a route that only Tighe used, as now people rarely left or came to the citadel. He turned on the C.C.T.V and the hidden camera positioned above the elevator within the temple, showed the smiling face of Norman Junior and a young lady.
“It’s okay dad, there aren’t any tourists about, let us down,” requested Junior
Norman hit the switch and the elevator brought the young couple down and then returned to the surface four more times. Rumble, puzzled by this, left the room and went outside the laboratory area and greeted seven newcomers. Norman hugged his son and Tu. Boran, came out of the lab and hugged his son and Norm Jnr.
Norman introduced the party of Americans
“This is Patty, my colleague and wife” he smirked
“This is Greg, Jerry and his wife Liz” they are software geeks and geniuses”
“And,” interrupted Tu, “this lovely lady is my wife, Anne, a computer designer one of the best”
Boran and Norman hugged them all and asked them why they had come.
The group made quite a stir in the citadel and breathed a new life into the stagnant work place. Norman telephoned Tighe to invite him to the citadel. Roth and a few others prepared a BBQ feast which they would all eat together on the pastures, Seventy seven people old and young had a loud joyful party. They turned the citadel environment controls from afternoon to night time mode at 2 p.m. to give them a long night of merriment. Colonel Tighe arrived at 7 o’clock and the party continued long into the night. The prodigal sons had returned.
The following day the group gathered in Norm’s office to explain why they’d come.
Norman Junior explained that they had become disgruntled with IBM. Their research programmes budget had been slashed and they could progress no further in developing their new invention, without the help of Professor Norman Rumble. Computer technology had to embrace science in order to grow, but unfortunately IBM, not prepared to pursue this cross research, cut their funding.
“In other words, they fired us” said Tu
Junior went on to explain how they wanted to remain in the citadel and carry on with their work alongside Boran and Norman’s and use their combined knowledge and skill to move to the next stage of computer evolution.
Norm Jnr then took a plastic box from his bad and placed it on Norm’s desk. The box, about the size of a car battery had sockets in the side for USB ports, and outlets that computers keypads and electrical components could be plugged into. Rumble and Ngem looked confused at the futuristic looking box.
“This is the housing,” said Norm Junior “the real brain is the core,” He opened the box and pulled out a large blue package filled with a blue gel and a mass of small optic fibre strands.
He placed the package on the table and Boran picked it up and inspected the blob.
“This,” said Norm Junior, “is the new computer technology and with your help, father and Boran, it will make the silicon chip become obsolete.
“This,” he went on, “will have the same advanced thoughts as the human brain, but a lot faster, and the storage capacity of just one of these battery cells will be approximately 10,000 times greater than any other computer.”
Norman Junior went on to explain about the project and the gel packs other amazing properties of growing and replicating. He informed his father, and Boran, that their research was pulled after IBM sank billions of dollars into the project, but after they presented them with a colourful although non functional battery, IBM assumed that the gel didn’t work and pulled the plug. Even though the team informed them that they needed to get the scientific community involved to discover a way to activate the gel. Norm Jnr, Tu and their colleagues believed in this project, and left IBM
They knew that with Norm, Boran and the other citadel scientist’s help, they could design and build their ‘Theory computer’.
When Norm Junior mentioned his project name he smiled at his old father. His father smiled back and understood why the project was named after his deceased mother. Theary was pronounced Terry the ‘h’ being silent, but when Norm saw the spelling, he used to affectionately call his wife, Theory.
“How can we help son?” asked Norm.
Junior went on to explain the gel needed a synthetic brain stem in order to function and the only way this could be achieved, was by scientists who had researched brain cells and understood how the brain functioned and how specific cells could be harvested.
Norman and Boran both looked at each other and smiled, their work now had become tedious and mundane, Norm realised if they could get Theory to function, it could conceivably mean they could complete their work a lot sooner, maybe in this lifetime. They agreed and the group cheered, knowing that if they succeed it would secure them a place in history, alongside the genius’s of the human race. However for Norm it was part of a bigger plan.
The work started the following day after the newcomers were settled into the citadel with another welcome party. The three software specialist set about correlating Norm’s data and creating a programme for Theory. Norman and Boran where working in the lab recovering old research from their laptops. Norm Junior, Tu and their two spouses made a list of needs that Tighe could acquire in order to replicate the gel. The process was relatively simple with basic synthetic neurons that they’d invented. (Although the gel would not function yet as it would only replicate itself in the right environment, which they could already create).
The project was named CAIN: Created Artificial Intelligent Neurons.
The problem facing Norm and the others was how to create a neural brain cell with DNA that held no genetic information, but a memory capacity, a clear canvas, so the computer would not have any personality.
That problem took them over a year to resolve. They found a single cell organism in plankton and with the MRI, sequenced its DNA structure, which they altered by adding a RNA messenger and made an almost human genome, a strand that contained no memory. However there appeared to be a catch 22 in developing a memory, because, although the machine they were creating could do this with ease, it would first require a memory, so without the help of Theory, they could not create Theory.
Norm, Boran and Norm Junior eventually solved the problem, but not by research or calculations it was pure luck. They required the genome from a human, one that had no memories, but had the capacity for learning.
A newly created human.
Norman Jnr and the now six months pregnant Patty agreed to allow Norm to take a stem cell sample from their developing baby’s hypothalamus. This was a tricky microscopic procedure, but with the help of his friend Professor Rom Pyett, an eminent neuro surgeon and resident of the citadel, and Rumbles ‘cell sniffer’ as he called the instrument for detecting the presence of cells, along with a Visual Reality scope and MRI micro scanner, they successfully removed two microscopic cells from Patty’s unborn infant causing no damage to either mother or baby. They used the CAIN teams gel to rapidly duplicate the cells. The next obstacle was to get the cells to merge with the single cell plankton and create one perfect cell. After three months of trial and error, and on the same day Norman Junior’s son Cain was born, the MRI’s computer bleeped. Rumble and Ngem rushed from the maternity room to the machine and looked at the TV screen displaying the image from an electron microscope, which showed cells dividing and growing at a vast rate.
“Where?” said Rumble as he looked at the screen
“I don’t see it,” said Ngem the machine still beeping.
“False alarm,” said Rumble and reset the alarm, but beeping continued.
“There!” exclaimed Ngem.
Within the millions of cells, one perfect cell with a short DNA strand and no human characteristic. Pure trial and error, LUCK
The two scientists removed the cell and placed it in the Gel, where it immediately divided and replicated itself once, twice, and ten, hundred a thousand fold in the space of a few minutes.
Over the next few days it was mayhem, they had loaded the cells into the gel batteries and the Neural cells had nearly all converted to Neurons and the team buzzed with excitement.
They now had to add a memory to see if the CAIN pack worked. Several days later they hooked it up to Greg’s laptop. They turned the CAIN fibre optic memory storage on, which glowed for a second, and then went dead.
“Nothing’s happened,” said Jerry
“It bloody has,” growled an angry Greg, “that fucking contraption has erased all 600 GB data off my computer and it doesn’t even work,” He carried on frantically tapping away at his now memory erased computer.
They all stood and stared at the black blank screen plugged into the CAIN battery pack.
“What a waste of time and money,” growled Greg at the screen.
The disappointed team were about to leave the room when Liz said. “Wait a minute. Greg what did you have on your computer?”
“Every bloody thing,” Greg snapped.
“An example?” asked Liz.
“All my software programmes, including the one that I wrote for the professor, named ‘Rumble soft’ Greg moaned.
Liz typed into the keyboard ‘Run rumble soft’ programme
The screen came to life, files flashed on and off at a rapid rate.
“You only have to ask, its learning” said a smug Liz.
Things after the creation of CAIN moved swiftly. They built ‘Theory’ the central system, which fed off the large network of storage fibres from the CAIN batteries and stored all the information They housed Theory separately in with 500 CAIN battery cells and decided to test it by attaching it to the World Wide Web.
Around the globe the information super highway went silent for a split second and then returned to normal, but not before Theory and CAIN had ingested and stored all its knowledge.
The team had made a successful start, but now they wanted to put this to some practical use, one that would benefit mankind. Norman Rumble and Boran Ngem’s work would be the project that Theory would now work on, and with Rumbles own scheme in mind, his plan would not only benefit mankind, but would be of great importance to him.
The only thing the team would not know is how long Theory would take to solve the problem that Norman had posed it and realised that it could take generations.
The software team would try to develop a programme, with the two professors’ help, for the computer to sequence every living cell and its DNA the RNA recipe and give the formula to replicate the cells of every living creature. They added a shortcut that the professors had been working on, as some of the RNA duplicated approximately 1.2 billion DNA strands and several trillion cells. Greg, Jerry and Anne worked on a programme to ask Theory.
Rumble started to develop a machine that could take instructions from Theory and mix up the various synthetic enzymes, proteins, and acids to exactly cook up the recipe of each and every DNA gene and create living cells. This machine they named simply, ‘The oven’.
This machine would work on the same principal to a paint colouring machine. Put a code into the computer e.g. peppermint green with lilac, the machine would mix in the right amount of paint to make the desired colour.
The oven however would be much larger and with pinpoint, microscopic accuracy.
They figured that with this technology they could detect faulty DNA, and grow, alter or remove what genes they wanted, thus curing every virus and cell attacking disease known to man, including Cancer and aids. But more importantly for Norm, Theory and the oven could create life from nothing, ‘Genesis’
The results would be phenomenal, gone would be the need for painful plastic surgery, just inject the altered DNA and hey presto a raven haired girl could be a blond, in the time it took the old cells to be naturally impregnated with the new recipe and multiply. A few minutes, depending on which cell it was.
In 2006, with the programmes complete, the teams were ready to enter the software and connect to the MRI devices and monitors, so Theory could work on Professor Rumble’s information. A large group gathered around the building that housed Theory and the programmers stood back.
“There you go dad,” said Norman Jnr the next honour is yours. The rest of the team and other scientists stood back and let Rumble through.
“Press this,” instructed Anne.
Rumble hesitated and took baby Cain from Patty’s arms.
“Let’s do it together, the old and new generation,”
Baby Cain cooed and Norm, holding Cain’s finger pressed the button as instructed. The machine glowed for a second and then nothing.
“Bloody useless,” mumbled Greg.
“No,” said Liz, “it’s working, just thinking and learning and unlike you Greg, it can actually think without belching, farting and grinding its teeth.”
After this anticlimax, they all left the building and spoke to the crowd, who went about their work, but would party tonight.
“The truth is,” Norm told the crowd of scientist and technicians. “We don’t know how long it will take, or if it will ever finish its calculations. I am afraid ladies and gentlemen we are in the dark over this one.”
2007, four years since the computer group arrived and less than one year after they had started the Theory programme to work on Normans task, the machine beeped to life for a brief second and sent a signal to the printer.
The Theory group, what the computer experts were now called, assembled in the room and tapped in instructions on keypads set into and around the machine. RUN programme
Large screens along the wall of the room instantly came alive, flashing information wildly across the monitors, molecular cell structures, DNA strands, chemical formulas, atoms, molecules all whizzed before the scientists and the Theory group.
The software programmers looked bemused at the screen, but the two old professors and their sons looked in amazement.
“What is it, darling?” Anne asked Norm Jnr
“Life,” was all Norm Jnr replied.
None of them could believe the speed in which Theory had managed to solve this seemingly impossible task and were amazed by how Theory had not only mapped out the cells and the DNA components, but it had also worked out the formula that the RNA messenger carried. They now not only had the cake, but also knew the recipe and how to bake it and the oven was almost complete.
A few weeks later the group gathered in front of a large machine that resembled a futuristic paint mixer with the small pots hidden away behind metal containers that were infinitely smaller, far greater in numbers and contained variety of synthetic proteins and enzymes, carbons and base chemicals. These chemicals were deposited by nozzles onto small black pads along the edges of a 10’x10’ table, at the centre of the table lay one large pad and several large nozzles were suspended above, this would deliver the mixed suspension and along with several banks of CAIN cells and fibre optic cables leading to scanners and monitors ‘The Oven’ looked like something from the star ship enterprise engine room. The machine was housed behind Perspex walls, along one side had a doorway cut into the Perspex for gaining access to the machine.
Outside the mixer compartment were screens and monitors, the Theory team entered instructions to the Theory via the CAIN cells that powered the oven.
The oven sprang to life as it connected to Theory and information passed from one super positron brain to another. There machines whirred as they started mixing and understanding. Then silence.
The screens went blank, the machines stopped mixing and there became a surreal quiet within the room
“What’s happened?” asked Greg “bloody thing stopped working again” still annoyed about the computer wiping his laptop of its memory.
“What’s happening son?” asked a concerned Norman.
“I don’t know dad” admitted an equally concerned Norm Jnr.
“Any ideas team” Norm asked the Theory team.
Everyone looked confused.
Several hours passed, the team had checked everything and became confused as they’d found everything to in working order.
“Back to the drawing board,” said Greg “I knew it was too good to be true”
“Of course!” said Anne realising the problem.
The group looked at her.
“Of course what?” said Jerry
“Theory gave the oven an instruction to map out the cells and replicate”
“And?” interrupted Jerry
“We have given it nothing to map and replicate,” said Anne ignoring Jerry
“Of course,” said Norm.
“Well done Anne,” said Tu.
“Dad the oven needs a sample of something,” Norm Jnr spoke,