Captain Gamer: Digital Defender

Episode 1: Realization

            The very day Digital Reality was tested successfully was a monumental undertaking in science history. It was given top security, meaning nobody outside the program knew about it, all means of identification on all involved were altered, and the scientists involved could not know anything about each other aside from bare essentials, and never used each other’s names. Instead, they used names of well-known individuals from their own country of origins as pseudo names.

            Moments before the first test of Digital Reality was conducted, there was massive chaos. It seems to be a fact of life that when scientists are about to do something big, every single one of them has to be elsewhere as quickly as possible. On the main helm of the operation, the best of the best sat, awaiting the ‘okay’ signal to begin the process. Pitt, the American scientist, watched all vitals screens, currently flat, but if all went well, should show different readings. Brooks, an Israeli man who won a pan-planet speed-typing competition, would punch in the programming for the test product. Lastly Chan, the Chinese digital designer, would feed the design for the product in question for the other two to work from. Any man could do it, but Chan was most familiar with the machine used. They looked from one another, exchanging great glances, but occasionally breaking into smiles, involuntarily from all the pressure placed on them.

            "Anybody else nervous?" Pitt muttered so nobody out of the three could hear. He drummed his fingers on an unimportant surface of his computer.

            "Of course not," Chan lied, exhaling long, "No, no, we have plenty of room for error."

            "It’s not like we’ll get sacked if the slightest thing goes wrong, right?" Brooks finished, lightly grazing the keys with his fingertips, running through the keys he would press when the process began.

            There was another silence between the three, giving way to the inaudible and maniac chatter provided by the rest of the Digital Reality institution. Finally, Brooks exhaled loudly enough to be heard and said, "Look at them. Do they all need to be running around like there’s a lion loose in the building?"

            Pitt dared not look away from the screens, nor take his hands off the various dials that only he knew their importance, "It’s possible some of them just need to use the restroom and don’t want to miss this."

            Brooks nodded slowly, still drumming the keys in his mind. Out of habit, he swung a little in his chair. He felt like the first chair in an inaugural ball orchestra awaiting the curtain rise.

            "It’s understandable, though." Chan tapped on his cordless mouse, of course not where the clickers were, "All pressure on us aside we have to realize that we could be creating a very wide variety of products all from the same source and materials, here. If all goes as planned, we have, at our disposal, the ability to create anything… people, buildings, food… saving the world economy unfathomable money and initiating a world-wide prosperity that could last literally forever!"

            Pitt afforded one aside look, “Sound a lot like playing God to me.”

            At the mention all three men fell silent. Things like politics and religion were bad for a workplace. It was probably the first time that God was mentioned in context in the entire IDR.

            Brooks spoke up, “That really depends on your definition of ‘playing God.’ How does mankind Play God? By taking what already exists and modifying it? Okay, then we played God the moment we realized that if we hurt something enough, we end its life. We played God the first time we killed a piece of fruit and ripped it apart and brought it into our systems to fuel our body. We played God when we flattened metal and found that we could use it to cut trees. We played God when we stacked those wooden corpses and used it to protect us from other men and rain. We played God the first time a voice could start in one place and end up in another without traveling through the space between. Hell, I’m playing God by drawing up images and Chan over there is playing God by writing up code that’ll tell what we’re making what to do. It all comes down to your opinions. Is something all good or all bad, or is there truly a limit that would blow the top off any philosophy that advocates the universal? There’s something to think about.”

            Either the other two men respected Chan’s monologue, or they were just too preoccupied to carry on that line of thought. Once again, a lack of poetic words gripped the three men and they resumed their nervous habits. It wasn’t long before Pitt interjected, "No pressure."

            As abruptly as the running and shouting had started, it had come to an end.

            The mood in the institution was completely opposite what it was before. Where chaos and near panic ensued, only hushed and awed silence reigned. Pitt, Brooks, and Chan sat in their padded chairs, seemingly took in the entire scene for the first time. They each sat in front of computers; Pitt’s had the largest monitor, at the far western side of a rectangular glass room. Crowded against the side of the glass, leaning over the square catwalks that reached upward as far as the eye could see, on higher floors, and watching through countless cameras, some authorized, some snuck in due to the lack of proper care, their colleagues could only stare with different thoughts, but great expectations buzzing through their heads.

            Finally a man entered the glass room and faced a lone camera. Immediately his image appeared on flat-screen monitors littering the institution. The man was as stereotypical as one could get. Large white hair and a white beard that barely bushed over his lower face complete with a lab coat bearing status-indicating pins as nametags. His mannerisms betrayed his age, for his eyes slightly bagged with age and fatigue of a long life yet he stood tall and proud. In a proud time he was not going to let physical determent take from him. Azure eyes surveyed the scene, the camera in front, the three men behind them, and the sea of white coats, every one as important as the last in developing the Digital Reality system. At long last, this man spoke.

            "As most, hopefully all, of you know, I am known merely as ‘the Professor.’ For security reasons, nobody in this institute has known my true name or any other nickname. I’d tell you today, but I am going for a world record."

            An amused murmur buzzed through the gigantic audience. The Professor had most likely opened speeches with this joke before, but this time was different, for the mood was much lighter and though nervousness reigned, spirits were generally high.

            "A countless amount of time has gone into the creation of Digital Reality." The leader continued, getting abruptly to the point, "and everybody here present to this time has done their part. Relish this moment, for even if something goes wrong, we all have a paycheck coming tomorrow anyway."

            This time some laughter was heard. This joke was new and came out of nowhere. Humor had been a great part of this process, for solemnity, as has been known at the time, causes fear of failure and leads to failure, too. Thus, workdays had been lighthearted but still very efficient.

             “I’ve been told by some higher-ups in the world that I am living in a fantasy world which just isn’t healthy. I say, ‘What’s so wrong with that?’ After all, if man was always content with the so-called ‘real world,’ would we have cars? Airplanes? Telephones? The internet? High-definition television? The list goes on. Everybody dreams. The only difference is within those who prefer their world of fantasy and live in it and rot from the inside out when reality is concerned and those who actually act upon their dreams. The latter are who change the world. Instead of being selfish and indulgent, they not only come to better grips with reality by making it easier to cope with through the integration of both fantasy and reality, but share their dreams with others. By forcing the fantasy into reality and after a little bit of transition, the dream has come true and the world is better for it.” the Professor once more paused to let his words settle. Once he was satisfied with the amount of time spent, he turned his gaze behind. "You all know Pitt, Brooks, and Chan. These three men will make our dreams come true. No ‘maybe’ about it.” He seemed to be aware of the mounting pressure on the three men and poked it so that it hurt so much it stopped, as the men chuckling nervously and at the friendly gall of the Professor indicated. The Professor made a sweeping motion, perhaps just to look impressive. “Let fantasy become reality!"

            Immediately Pitt cranked a dial with several settings up to maximum. A humming echoed throughout the entire institute and the glass room began to fill with light. Brooks made his mind wanderings come to life, moving his fingers impossibly fast to create streaming lines of data. Chan, much calmer in comparison, navigated a complicated network of files and data until the image of a cube appeared onscreen. An odd process began onscreen where the cube was reduced to wired frames in a couple of chunks, then returned to the original flesh-colored shape. The occurrences had visible effects on both Pitt’s and Brooks’s screens.

            The light in the glass room grew in size and intensity, but nothing neither blinding nor gargantuan. The three men were not fazed, having been trained for this day ever since signing up for this program. Pitt controlled buttons and dials while Brooks continued to dance his fingers over the keyboard and Chan’s designer flare never died for this cube on his screen. Finally, the humming grew louder to a point and the light ceased to increase.

            "This is it!" Pitt reported over the humming, knowing when the readings dictated it so.

            "Almost!" Brooks shouted, not missing a beat on his code.

            "I’m through here!" Chan reported, wiping sweat off his brow.

            "Right!" Brooks said immediately after, "That’s the last of it!"

            Pitt eyed a final switch, blinking out sweat every second, "Here goes…"

            Pitt threw his hand onto the switch, and then used all his strength, bringing the switch down to bottom.

            The humming and light faded.

            All heads and eyes flew to where the light used to be. From a distance, one could not see it, but the lucky ones nearby could see it perfectly: a square inch cube of what looked to be flesh. It sat where it was, unmoving, defying the awed looks that almost expected movement. The silence continued until somebody got the resolve to move. A domino effect ensued, causing murmurs anew. A pair of men who looked like quarantine doctors rushed to this new cube. All eyes remained on them as they pulled out several instruments. One doctor began to conduct tests of unknown use on the cube while the other clutched a clipboard and recorded all results. It seemed like days until the final test had been conducted.

            Once the final result was recorded, the man with the clipboard went over every result, his head in a perpetual nod. Then, when he made a mark at the bottom of a column and circled it, his eyes widened, looking at the final product. He slowly turned to look at the four men behind the computers, and then very violently nodded his head with utmost enthusiasm.

            "Success!!" the Professor bellowed as loud as his lungs permitted. He repeated the word over and over in case somebody did not hear.

            What used to be deafening silence became deafening cheers. Every voice in the institute howled as one in light of this great undertaking in science. Champagne bottle corks were popped and flew, couples and groups embraced, and a general pandemonium of triumph ruled the institute for a long time.

            The cube of flesh, aptly dubbed the ‘Flesh Cube’ represented a little of everything that Digital Reality aimed to achieve as far as functioning life was concerned. Inside the thin layer of flesh was a minute skeleton, miniaturized vital organs, and even a heart that pumped blood in a loop. If everything that made up the inside of a human being were confined to a smaller space, the flesh cube would have been the result. Chan designed all the parts, Brook’s coding told the parts what to do, and Pitt’s handling helped the machines made the two merge.

            Digital Reality had become reality.

            In a near future, technology will only advance more and the aspects of life before thought constant and out of control were more understood and increasingly customizable. More and more, scientists have determined the limits of existence, what anything can or cannot do. Once they reached an acceptable level of barriers, they immediately moved to break them.

            Most importantly, the one limit man has tried to break since the dawn of its existence is the creation of something from nothing. To say that this is possible at face value would be a lie; something has to happen to something to make something. In other words, material has to be used in the creation of something greater. The planet is composed of finite resources and if material is constantly used, the planet will have nothing more to offer. The only way to avoid this is to find some way to take used material and harness it once again.

This has already been done for generations and is called ‘recycling.’ It seems simple, but considering human history, it is quite marvelous and even has emotional and spiritual implications. What was previously thought to be useless is given new meaning, new purpose, and new life! Of course, there is a great gap in feasibility between a used soda can and dissolved carbon molecules lost to the atmosphere. Was it possible to take any amount of ‘used’ material in such a way that a finite amount can be used infinitely, and thus spare the planet any further raking of its resources? This was the philosophy that leads to the newest and most amazing technology that man had yet known at the time of its creation.

            Digital Reality.

            Through a complicated process, too long for a narrative, scientists all around the world devised a system in which they could create something from nothing important. To put it in a way, it was like printing out a document, except there is no paper, and the ink is actually any collection of molecules extracted from minute traces in the atmosphere. In short, if it can be modeled using a 3-dimensional program on a computer, than Digital Reality can create, or ‘realize’ it.

            The institute that took it upon themselves to try and carry out this process took on a nondescript name, the Institute of Digital Reality, also referred to as the IDR. Not as creative as most would have liked, but it was soon to be a household name.

            The Professor sent out a communication to the world leaders to tell them that their tax dollars had been well-spent. The first question out of every direction pertained to what the IDR planned for their first ‘real’ Realization. There had been an official video conference, but afterward private means of communication were utilized from all sides.

            Requests flooded in the form of secret mail accounts, smuggling letters, and direct confrontation. Each world leader had his or her own request for the IDR’s first practical Realization. The requests varied from natural resources to brand new buildings, and each contained a slipped check upwards of a small fortune.

            The breaking point was reached when with an exasperated sigh, a black woman scientist under the pseudo name Jordan passed through transcripts like one shuffles through their bills and junk mail. She paused at one and read it aloud, “An army of perfect, obedient soldiers.” Knowing full well that such a request would have a pretty purse attached to it, she looked to the envelope with the almost obligatory check in it. She was about to hold it when the Professor’s hand swiped forward and grabbed both the transcript and the check from her hand. He promptly jammed them into a nearby paper shredder.

            “No.” the Professor, a normally mild-mannered man of infinite patience, growled hastily. His anger was in no way directed toward Jordan, but seeing her superior take such an appalled view of the request was a shock to her world, as it would have been for any of the IDR scientists.

            The Professor immediately scheduled a gathering of world leaders in which the date was set and attendance was completely mandatory. The man of science greeted the panel of powerful men and women with a harsh look like a teacher who caught some students who had obtained the answers to the final exam.

            “I hold in my hands,” the Professor began, holding up a few folders, “the transcripts to upwards of enough ‘private requests’ to cover each of you tenfold.” He dropped the folders onto the table that all in attendance sat at. “This is unacceptable. I will not point fingers or name names, but I am throwing away every single one of these requests in exchange that I do not reveal who asked for what. We have worked hard on Digital Reality and we will be damned if it will be abused-” He appeared to have one more word to say, but stopped himself.

            “We will withdraw our funding!!” one world leader declared, accompanying with hitting his fist on the table.

            The Professor held up both hands to quell what could have been a massive uproar, “It’s true. As the funding for Digital Reality, you are entitled to some say in what your tax dollars produce. However, the final decisions are joint agreements between you all and the IDR. You may terminate your funding contract with the IDR, but please consider this… it was a success, ladies and gentlemen! You are not investing in an unknown! What we have is the only investment of its kind. It is because of this that we are ambivalent as to what we should realize first. For you to pull out now for something so minute may short-change your countries… even the whole world!” The Professor stopped to gage the reactions of the world leaders via a scoreboard-type panel in front of him. They mostly complied. With tensions quelled, he breathed in. This is where he forfeited some of the authority he just exerted. “To stop the flow of ‘first Realization’ requests, the IDR has come up with their own request.” He brought up a new slide.

            The world leaders all made mouth noises ranging from amused to confused and indignant disbelief. Some even snickered; others shook their heads for various reasons. One leader looked back to the Professor, “Surely, you and who you represent are joking?”

            The request and answer for the first Realization came as suddenly as the problem had. At a time between the calling of the meeting and the meeting itself, a group of men were discussing ideas.

            “I’m thinking we should create a common animal.” One scientist spoke up, “At least something that shows our capabilities as much as can be shown in one Realization.”

            The Professor nodded, “It is a fine idea. But how can we convince that panel that what we have brought is not an animal picked up at a shelter? It would be like a child handing in a board with a nail in it for his Wood Shop class project.” the Professor noticed the original speaker hanging his head, “It was a fine idea for sure, though.”

There was a nervous chuckle that ran around the room and when it died the laugh of Miyazaki, a Japanese scientist, had lasted longer. It was actually a chuckle of amusement rather than at the meeting situations. Soon all eyes were on him. His own eyes were directed below the table.

“Miyazaki!” the Professor called. The scientist next to Miyazaki nudged the Japanese man of science. Miyazaki jumped to attention and quickly looked up. The Professor grinned, “Checking out your PDA during an important meeting, Miyazaki? I thought you would be on the ball more than this. At least you can share your current fantasy with the world at large and tell us what you were looking at.”

Miyazaki fidgeted, “It really was nothing.”

“Come now.” the Professor responded, purposely drawing more attention, “At this point it’s practically obligatory. You may even contribute. The sandwich and the doughnut were both products of unintentional circumstances.”

Like spectators to a tennis event the other heads in the room shifted over to Miyazaki. Miyazaki held up his PDA for all to see. “It’s an email. My daughter. She drew a picture of her favorite video game character. It’s, um, Mario. Well, I’m sure anybody can tell who this is. Anybody who hasn’t been living under a rock can.”

Miyazaki made to pocket his PDA but he noticed that a few heads were still looking at it and more specifically the picture on it. His hand stopped, then rose slowly and the gazes followed. Some chins went into hands.

Chan, the local design authority, chuckled, “Let’s see the panel accuse us of faking THAT.”

It wouldn’t have been a table of scientists if a simple statement like that didn’t get every set of wheels in the room spinning.

“Indeed,” the Professor placed his palm flatly on the table, “Let’s.”

A feeling of good humor passed through the room until the creeping realization that the Professor was being serious took place and Chan spoke up again, “Wait… what?”

The Professor looked into every skeptical eye and enjoyed their looks of confusion. “I said, ‘let’s,’ as in ‘Yes, let’s see that panel accuse us of faking the creation of an Italian plumber who is two head lengths high and jumps several times that height.’ One major concern is that we will not convince the panel and another is that our products will actually cause some harm. I like to think that integrating fantasy and reality is the little theme of our institute. What is more harmless than a video game hero and more representative of the collision of fantasy and reality? More than the existence of a character that has only so far been separated from the real world by a television screen, that is?”

By all means it did sound pretty good and downright logical.

            The longer that Mario’s image stayed on the projector screen, the cooler and more controlled the atmosphere in the room got. The outrage settled, and more and more, some of the world leaders turned to one another and exchanged interjections of approval. Only a few had to inquire what they were looking at in the first place.

            “Do we have a deal?” the Professor asked calmly, though his heart pounded. Each world leader took out a pad that recorded their answer to a simple yes-or-no question and promptly pushed the button for their response. The results of the split-second poll flashed in front of the Professor. Little by little, each result came out with a green ‘yes.’ Some had started as a red ‘no,’ but had eventually changed to ‘yes.’ The Professor smiled, “Thank you all… really. This is a very big load off my shoulders, you cannot believe. I simply wanted to make my point pristine clear. I hope that the contents of this meeting had not deterred you from the IDR.”

            A new poll opened, and a couple of the world leaders had pressed ‘no.’

            Because it had been done before, the feel of the process was a lot less tense. However, they were realizing more than just a condensed human form; they were now going to create a fully functional being. Thus, the same audience attended this next Realization. The wait seemed much shorter, and before anybody knew it, the machines had activated much earlier than it had felt the absolutely first time to long ago.

            Using every graphical source possible, the institute’s designers built a three-dimensional model of Mario while the programmers scrapped together, even played, every source of story or memory for him and worked on making him functional, sentient, having a personality, and even a memory, all in coding and placed in the head. When these two were consolidated, they were dumped into one machine, and all the operators had to do was flip the switch and watch the monitors, moving only if something began to go wrong.

            The newest and most improved model of the Digital Reality brought the on-screen models to life much like they were created. First a field projected a blue wire frame of Mario one object at a time, going top-down, starting with his hat which was a simple shape domed at the front and a cartoon ‘M’ at the front and with a visor at the bottom. His head followed. It was quite pear shaped and had two large eyes that were dominated by pupils. The nose was also much exaggerated in size with a mustache with two halves that each seemed to be composed of four half circles. The body was simplistic. A round torso with four chubby limbs with a shirt and draped over by denim overalls. The arms were tipped with gloves and the feet by boot-like shoes.

            Once the objects were outlined, they flashed white, one at a time, the object having a color once the white glow faded. The skin adopted a most common tone. The hair faded into brown while, oddly enough, the mustache darkened to a compete black. The eyes faded into a blue. Next the clothes adopted colors. The hat and undershirt faded into red while the overalls became a predictable blue. The shoes were a mundane brown. It was hard to tell when the gloves were done adopting a color since they turned out to be white. Piece by piece, the emotionless hologram gave way and filled in, revealing the beginnings of a real being. He looked odd, though. His parts were not affected by light or texture, so he looked two dimensional from any angle.

            The real amazing part came as the two dimensional image began to bulge out. Almost as if he were being inflated, Mario’s body seemed to bulge and adjust until matching the model that the designers had created. It was hard to tell if everything had been some kind of electric material, very trace amounts of carbon material, or an achieved hybrid of the two. It was probably best to leave that question alone, for it would take a lot more time and reconstruction to exactly find it out.

            Mario was complete. He hung suspended in the air due to a recently patented and currently laboratory-only anti-gravity mechanism. As the anti-gravity lifted and Mario’s feet touched the platform, they flattened the soles against the landing, which showed signs that there was some spark of life and perhaps intelligence in the body they had just created.

            Once he had landed on the ground, he did not move. The tube lifted and Mario was no longer closely encaged. There were a variety of reasons why, but the Professor took a great initiative and walked toward the newly realized figure. Mario was an odd sight to behold, with exaggerated features and most notably only a few head lengths high. Once the Professor stood a length from Mario, he stood, and then waited before speaking.

            "Welcome to the world, Mario Mario. It is not exactly the Mushroom Kingdom, a world of whimsical delight and fantasy joy, but I am sure you will enjoy your time nonetheless."

            After that, Mario’s eyes stirred for a little bit, then they slowly opened large blue eyes scanned the area around him, from the men and computers in front of him to the glass room to the flood of people looking on. With all this as his first sight, only two timeless words cut the silence from there.

            "Momma mia!"

            The coding and design of Mario’s vocal chords were so precise that to hear the real living Mario, freshly realized, was no different than hearing the plumber’s voice in a video game or from the voice actor himself. Yet another marvel of Digital Reality had been achieved. The good sports of the institute for Digital Reality all erupted in laughter in that the first things said by Mario, and by any digitally realized being were the signature words, ‘Momma mia.’

            While Mario adjusted to the real world, the board of directors for the institute met and agreed that they would experiment with video game characters to test out new innovations in Digital Reality. Afterwards, a call was put out to the world leaders. They were all invited to the Digital Reality institute to see just what exactly taxpayer money from the entire world over had been siphoned into, and whether they were right in voting ‘yes’ to this display. They were all skeptical of the entire Digital Reality project until Mario himself walked into the room, responded to every question, and even shook hands with the world leaders. Every leader unanimously agreed in one wander lusted swoon that Digital Reality was a smashing success as it currently stood, and even agreed to increased investments in the program.

            The last step was to have the rest of the world know of Digital Reality. Mario would tour the world, attend press conferences, and get a good stretch in the spotlight until Digital Reality was well and established. He would meet with serious panels, but more importantly with the lovers of video games worldwide, the ones who regarded Mario with more admiration than any celebrity or social activist. For the very first time, a gamer will be able to discuss anything with their favorite video game character, get an autograph, and shake hands.

            It truly was going to be a gamer’s dream.

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