A Dream From The Past

Josh grabbed his horchata and leaned back in his chair; this was going to be a long story, and he had heard most of it before, but he didn’t mind. Shivu was a great storyteller, so he knew this was going to be good.

Shivu cleared his throat and began to tell the story as if he was reading from a great novel, “Those arches in the corner over there and the telepods in the center of the building have a common ancestry. To explain this better, first I have to take you back to the year 1882 when Nikola Tesla discovered the Rotating Magnetic Field in Budapest, Hungary. This was a fundamental discovery in physics. You are probably familiar with Tesla’s work?”

“Oh yes, and I met him once—interesting man,” Albert said.

“He’s on my list, to attempt retrieval,” Josh added.

Shivu nodded his approval and continued, “Then in 1937, Columbia University Professor Isidor I. Rabi working in the Pupin Physic Laboratory in Columbia University, New York City, observed the quantum phenomenon dubbed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). He recognized that the atomic nuclei show their presence by absorbing or emitting radio waves when exposed to a sufficiently strong magnetic field. He received a Noble Prize for his work. Perhaps you have heard of him too?”

“Yes indeed,” Albert replied.

“Unfortunately we weren’t able to retrieve him,” Josh added.

Shivu went on, “In 1973, Paul Lauterbur, a chemist and an NMR pioneer at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, produced the first NMR image. It was 1977 when the first machine was created to see into your body, without the use of X-rays. This machine was called the MRI for Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine. Then on July 3, 1977, nearly five hours after the start of the first MRI test, the first human scan was made as the first MRI prototype. This machine was to begin a major cultural shift for all mankind.”

“I had read several papers that proposed such a machine might be possible. It’s great to hear that someone accomplished this.” Albert said excitedly.

Shivu looked at Einstein with reverence when he began his next bit of commentary, “Another technology having been developed helped us grow and learn more about our environment. You may or may not be familiar with the terms Maser or Laser, but when I tell what the acronym’s stand for you will understand whose early work brought them to be. Maser stands for Microwave Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation, and Laser stands for Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation.”

“Oh my, that was part of some work I did for a friend Saty Bose from Calcutta, India,” Albert exclaimed.

Shivu beamed, “He was my great-great-great grandfather.”

“I think I have just added another scientist to my list of retrievals,” Josh chimed in.

Shivu smiled, looked down at his watch and tapped it, then appeared to be writing something with his finger in mid air just over the watch. Then he looked up at Josh, smiled his big toothy smile and stated, “I will hold you to that.” He looked back to Albert and started again with his story, “With the advent of the first Optical Laser in 1960 many of your theories became testable. Gravity waves, frame dragging, time waves were all eventually proven to exist...”

Shivu went on for the next hour, locked in conversation with Albert on the history of specific technologies. Albert was entranced by the story, and the two became oblivious to the world around them—even Josh. For Josh’s part, he just continued to lean back in his chair and calmly sipped on his drink. Jacques stopped by and quietly removed their lunch discs and replaced their drinks with fresh refills, but only Josh was aware of this. Albert didn’t even flinch this time when Jacques tapped the table and the old drink glasses faded away again. Josh thanked Jacques and gave him an apologetic look for the apparent rudeness of the other two, Jacques understood, and again retreated back the kitchen.

Josh decided to take this time to check his voicemail, and nonchalantly tapped his watch and then each ear to put on his ear buds, so he wouldn’t disturb his friends in conversation. He then used his fingernail and pulled off the micro stylus from his wristband and fiddled with his watch to turn off the voice command mode and the holographic mode, so he could quietly check his messages. A female voice sounding very much like his wife thundered in his ears, “You have three new messages, would you like to hear them now?” Josh jolted forward as the shock of the loud noise startled him, and almost spilled his drink. This caused Shivu and Albert to brake momentarily from their animated conversation and they both looked curiously at Josh.

“Are you ok?” Shivu asked.

“Yes, sorry; please continue.” Josh replied sheepishly.

Shivu continued undaunted, while Josh adjusted the volume on his watch and began to listen to his first message.

Naturally it was from his wife, “Hi Hon, it’s Blue. Just wanted to drop you a line to let you know I’m in transit now and should be arriving in a few days following this message. I have forwarded some holos of our new granddaughter LitaMarina—she is so darling. She has her mother’s eyes and her father’s ears and mouth, but she has your cute nose. I know you can’t wait to see her. Alana promised to keep sending more holos every day so we will have a steady stream of her progress. Oh! And I have some more good news; with the start of their new family, Alana and Ling have decided not to renew their five-year study contract and will be bringing LitaMarina home. See you when I get home. Love you, bye!”

This news washed over Josh like a fresh summer rain. Although he knew Marina needed to be with their daughter and new granddaughter, it was hard to have her gone for two years at a time. Now it seemed like the skies just brightened a little and the clouds parted, because soon his bride would be home for good and they could be close to the kids again. Josh smiled and longingly thumbed the holographic projector on his watch, but decided to continue—the pictures of his new granddaughter would have to wait—two clicks to save the last message, and then on to the next.

It was a colleague from Berkeley this time. “Hey Josh! Ryan here. Congratulations on your latest successful mission—I just got word. I have that trip to Mars on Thursday, but when I get back, I will buy you a drink and you can tell me all about your ‘trip’, and how it was to actually talk with the Albert Einstein. Heck! Bring him along and I’ll buy him a drink too.”

You’re such a big spender, Ryan, Josh thought to himself. “Anyway, I have that progress report on the Warp Drive study; I think we’re making some good progress there. It’s attached to this message; even though I’m sure you probably won’t want to read it until you get back Monday. Catch ya later!” Hmmmm, Josh thought, perhaps he could read this report to pass the time, but then that would also require the holographic projector. Never mind that idea—save…next.

Another familiar and excited voice, “Hello Josh, this is Salina. I understand that you have a new guest for me. I am very glad to hear that you were successful in bringing back Professor Einstein. As you may have already guessed I have volunteered to be his liaison, and will be arriving tomorrow around 7:30 in the morning to meet with him. If you or he have any questions for me, please feel free to contact me at any time, between now and then; I will remain available for calls.”

Now, how did she know I was with him, thought Josh?

“A press conference has been scheduled to officially announce his arrival on Thursday at 11:30 in the morning, in the large conference room at the World Trade Center Super Tower, and you are also invited to be there. As you know, news like this is very hard to contain; there are already rumors of him being spotted at a Tele Port in the UAC. I assume this means he’s having dinner with you.”

Oh, that might be how, Josh thought. Damn, we forgot to reset his security chip.

“Until Thursday then, take care!”

After several more messages, Josh glanced over to Albert then to Shivu to see that were still unswervingly linked in their conversation, and then glanced down at his watch to make a few notes in his scheduling book. He was having a challenging time at it too, for he wasn’t used to writing all this stuff down manually; however, he didn’t dare turn on the voice command mode and disturb those two again. Once he finished putting in his invitation to the Trade Center, he put his watch back to normal mode, slipped the micro stylus back into the band and checked the time. Then he remembered his ear buds, plucked them out and stuck them back on his watch. Now he could join in on the conversation again.

Meanwhile Shivu had gone on to describe the advances of lasers and how the technology progressed to X-ray lasers and how X-ray lasers helped us to create nano robots called nanides, nano-electronics, and holographic images of living cells. Then Shivu covered cloning technology and all the advances in that field. He then backed up to cover the history of computers—something most children of this time learn about in second grade—and how they advanced science a thousand fold. Shivu made a slight detour in computer history to discuss a technology created in the 1980’s called stereo-lithography—a very long and techie name for 3D printers. He went into detail about Quantum theory and the phenomena of quantum entanglement used in teleporting. Then finally tied it all together by saying that the ideas behind all these technologies converged in the year 2017, to create the first machine that could ‘print a copy’ or essentially a clone of a living cell.

“This machine had great promise for biology and medicine, and one of the first uses in medicine was to help ‘print’ new skin onto burn victims. Naturally the process was very lengthy at first, taking several hours to clone up to 10 centimeters of skin surface; however, the skin was so perfectly cloned that there was never a chance for rejection. In the process of natural progression, organs and replacement appendages were soon replicated. Later doctors could repair damaged parts, organs or limbs by simply scanning the affected areas and virtually operating on the patient, then ‘printing’ the repairs into the patient. This process became invaluable for a budding space-faring world. After a short time a very large database was amassed on the process of repairing humans and artificial intelligence was slowly working its way into the process as well. Doctors eventually moved to taking on the role of coaches, simply directing complicated repair procedures from their offices; this is a role that they still carry today. Today any damage to the body that doesn’t require an appendage replaced or brain surgery can be repaired right through that Rejuvenator over there, without the need for a doctor.”

“What about children? Are there still doctors for pregnant mothers?” Albert inquired.

“Oh yes, there are still doctors that specialize in that field. They are called family doctors—for lack of a better term, and they run family planning clinics. This is where women and couples can go when they find that they are pregnant or if they decide they want to have a child. A family doctor can provide all the necessary care remotely, from the clinic and some still make house calls—in special cases or emergencies. Women don’t actually have to get pregnant or even carry the child as the conception and gestation can now take place outside of the parents in a lab or a care center, but some parents still choose to have their children in what is now called the old fashioned way.

“Food, hygiene and sanitary facilities slowly became unnecessary, as the Rejuvenator gained more and more capabilities. A person no longer has to eat, drink, shower, shave, brush teeth or even excrete bodily wastes. You simply step through the Rejuvenator (A.K.A. the Juve, Jukebox, Rejuv, or Juicer), and you are reset with your preferred body type, a hairstyle you prefer, and facial hair as you like it, all blemishes are removed—unless you want to keep them for personality, proper nutrients are delivered directly to the cells in your body and your stomach is given something to digest that keeps it busy all day. All the waste and toxins are removed from your body as well. In fact all nightclubs and restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages are required to have a Juve at all the exits so that their customers, who aren’t allowed to walk the streets intoxicated, can be cleansed.”

“It’s a crime to be publicly intoxicated; as people can be destructive when they’re drunk. Police carry a portable Juve just in case somebody escapes a bar while still intoxicated; they also use it to clean up the homeless street dwellers.” Josh added, since he was actually listening to the conversation now.

“You still have homeless living on the streets in this time?” Albert asked, for he was astonished by this news.

Josh felt compelled to answer this one, since he started it, “Well you have to understand that being homeless is really just a choice—a state-of-mind if you will. While it’s true nobody sets out to be homeless, but to stay homeless means that they carry no ambition to leave that life and move back to a life with a home, a job and perhaps even a family. It’s all in the way they think, but there is a possible happy ending for that story. A new crusade has begun with a mission to stamp out the homeless problem. Personally, I think it should have started decades, perhaps even centuries ago. A group of individuals formed a non-profit organization geared at re-educating these homeless street dwellers; the group tries to find a deep desire in the hearts of these people and then teaches them how they can get it. My father is a member of this group—he has been a motivational speaker most of his life, so this line of work fit right in. Sorry to interrupt you Shivu, you were talking about the Rejuvenator.”

Albert shifted from Josh back to Shivu, “Oh yes, Shivu, please continue.” Then Albert quickly looked back to Josh, “You must tell me more about your father and his work sometime.”

“You bet,” Josh replied and then he too shifted his attention back to Shivu.

Shivu went on to say, “Anyway, medicine wasn’t the only thing advanced by this technology, manufacturing became a simple one step process from raw material to finished goods. Delivery became incredibly efficient too, as now all manufactured goods could be tele-ported directly to your home. Some industries were turned upside down like the clothing industry actually just became the style industry, like the style of clothes you are wearing was created by a clothes designer and he or she gets paid for every time a person chooses to wear that style. Rather than having to actually produce the clothes and ship them to customers, clothes designers send their designs over the Internet—that’s the computer network we talked about earlier—to all the Juves throughout the solar system. Now all anyone has to do is choose an outfit they wish to wear and walk through the nearest Juve and—poof—they are wearing it.”

“So that closet door frame back at my…uh…that office that looks like mine, is actually a Juve…eh… Rejuvenator?” Albert inquired.

“Yep!” Josh and Shivu answered together.

“And it doubles as a telepod as I mentioned earlier. Those Juves are a little more expensive, but we get the good stuff in our line of work.” Josh finished.

“Tell me more about the teleport device.” Albert said.

“Ok, well, the first successful teleport of was actually nothing more than a photon. This progressed to electrons, protons and then to atoms and eventually molecules, but the first successful teleport of a solid object took place in 2021, but that was an inanimate object—a simple metal block. It was a 1cm X 1 cm X 1cm cube, but very shortly more complex objects were being teleported and soon a new industry was born. It seemed like it would be a simple step to take once computers were powerful enough to store the information about the entire human body, that humans would be next in the teleport pod. However, teleporting life seemed to be extremely baffling, a single living cell could be teleported and would sometimes be alive in the other pod, and sometimes not. Other scientists were trying animal tests and those tests were proving to be equally difficult.

“It wasn’t until someone accidentally stumbled across a potential theory; Dr. Miles Frederick Fritz read a very old study about how dogs could be trained to salivate by the ringing of a bell. By simply ringing the bell several times just before producing food to the dogs, scientists were able to produce the anticipation in the dogs of getting food by ringing the bell, and then later they would simply ring the bell and the dogs would salivate. Dr. Fritz thought that perhaps the living organisms needed an incentive to motivate them to make the move. He first tested this theory on single celled organisms. He would place a living cell in a Petri dish with little to no food in the sending pod and then placed a Petri dish with food in the receiving pod. The results produced a living cell in the receiving pod 100% of the time. He then tried the same experiment with mice, with mixed results; it wasn’t until he trained the mice that there was food in the other pod that he produced a 100% success rate again. His experiment with dogs was simple; he would show the hungry dogs that there was food and water in the other pod and again he produced a 100% success rate.”

“Wow! That is very interesting,” said Albert absentmindedly.

Shivu continued as he acknowledged Albert, “His conclusion was very interesting, too. He had determined that in order to teleport a living entity, that entity had to have the desire to go to the destination of the other pod. Dr. Fritz decided to test this theory on himself. On September 26, 2035 he and his team completed building two pods big enough for a human. At 10:31 that morning, he stepped in to the first pod—Pod A—and stated in a loud clear voice, ‘I desire to be in Pod B.’ At that statement the team turned on the machine, and after two and a half hours, Dr. Fritz became the very first human to be successfully teleported.”

“Oh yes, that’s what you were trying to tell me earlier back at the hospital in New Jersey, weren’t you Josh?” Albert said. “You have to want to go or it doesn’t work.”

“Yes sir, Uncle Albert, you’ve got it now.” Josh replied and gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

A moment later Jacques apparently saw a lull in the conversation between the three men and returned to their table, “Would anyone care for dessert, today?”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea, “Josh replied.

Shivu got even more excited, “Are you still buyin’?”

Josh answered, “I thought you would pick up the desserts.”

Shivu’s expression dropped as he said, “Oh. I suppose I could do that.”

Josh chuckled and saved his friend, “I’m just kidding, I can get it.”

With that, Shivu smiled and regained his composure, “In that case I will have a large apple cobbler a la mode.”

Josh decided Shivu needed a little more ribbing; “I’ll bet you could have afforded this whole meal if you hadn’t invested all your fortune in that Orbital Ventures stock.”

He looked at Shivu and grinned, and quickly turned to Jacques, “I think I will have the same. That sounds really good.”

Shivu interjected, “It wasn’t much of a fortune and that was a long time ago, I now have my stock on that startup company; Zimm Astro Construction. That guy is a brilliant businessman and he just took his business public last year; I’m going to make a fortune.”

“Are you sure about that? Didn’t you hear on the news that the Zimm family had disappeared?”

Of course Josh was just poking fun; he had no idea if they were the same Zimms.

“Oh no, it couldn’t be the same Zimms, there’s probably hundreds of Zimms living out there.” Shivu said brushing off Josh’s comment with a wave of his hand, but secretly that comment did raise some suspicion in his mind.

By now Jacques had turned to Albert and he was again about to wave Jacques away like he did with the breadsticks.

Josh noticed and intervened, “Oh go on Uncle, live a little—better yet, live a lot.” Josh encouraged, “You no longer have to concern yourself with your diet, and it will have no effect on you once you walk through a Juve.”

“But I’m already full; I don’t think I could eat another bite.” Albert protested.

Shivu and Josh looked at each other and with a mischievous look.

Josh motioned to the corner of the Café, “Perhaps you need to take a walk through the arch, Uncle.”

By this time Albert had had so much to drink that he was beginning to feel the burden of nature’s call. Also realizing that he had already been through these devices at least twice now, and they seemed pretty harmless; he stood up and walked over to the Rejuvenator Arch. For a moment he just stood there examining the frame once more—as if he stared at it long enough it would reveal its secrets—then walked through. A wave of relaxation washed over his body like a wall of water had splashed its way through and cleansed his skin, released his tension, relieved his pressure and revitalized his mind. When he came out the other side, he noticed that he didn’t feel nature’s burden anymore, nor did he feel full. He didn’t feel hungry either, for that matter, but he knew he could sure enjoy that cobbler now.

He now had something in mind, “Jacques!” he called.

“Oui monsieur?” Jacques politely replied.

“Could you bring me a nice, cold lemonade, please? I’ll have an apple cobbler a la mode too.” Albert asked.

“Certainly monsieur,” he replied, and he was off again.

The three men carried on their conversation for several more hours, and this time Shivu had questions of his own for Albert. Shivu was curious about life in the early part of the 19th century, especially the technology. As he talked to Albert he discovered a history, that books don’t give you—a firsthand look at how those technologies were used. The conversation was so exciting and fresh that even Josh was involved this time. Jacques scooted in and out occasionally checking to make sure the drinks never went empty.

As the conversation began to wind down and Josh could see that Albert was beginning to look a little tired; it was mutually decided that it was time to go. Josh motioned for Jacques to return and requested the bill, so Jacques came over and held out his hand with his palm facing up as if he was expecting money, but instead a small holographic image scrambled into view just over his hand, showing an itemized breakdown of their lunch:

Drinks 3 @ $ 45.05 $ 135.15

Meals 3 @ $728.26 $2,184.78

Desserts 3 @ $230.27 $ 690.81

Water $ 20.97

Tax $ 242.54

Total $3,274.25

Without flinching Josh placed his thumb in the middle of Jacques’ palm, as Albert gasped in disbelief.

Josh then turned to Albert and stated matter-of-factly, “Now you see why we don’t do this very often.” …and grinned a cheesy grin.