The lecture ended and the students left the class. Professor Thrun arranged his study material scattered on the table and stuffed it in his case. It came to his notice that Alex had not left the room. He seemed engrossed in his thoughts, scribbling some notes.

“Ahem, Ahem..” Thrun tried to get Alex’s attention but Alex was deep intrigue with scribbling some codes on his notepad. Thrun reckoned there must be something that kept one of his brilliant student silent. Alex had never been mute in Thrun’s lecture. Alex always rose questions that either brood a debate or found a source to an unsolvable code. So it seemed obvious to Thrun that Alex might be in distress. He went near Alex and took a sit beside his bench and question.
“Mr. Alex, it seems todays lecture was boring.”
Alex look around with attention and replied, “I don’t think so. It was.”
“Perhaps you didn’t notice.”
Alex thought for a while and replied, “I did, until you talked about perpetuity of AI bots and lifespan of humans.”
“So why didn’t you interact.”
“It was because your thought made me think. It made me think why can’t human become perpetual.”
“Humans can. In every cultural myth you can read about humans longing to seek the secret of immortality. Today we are close to it.
“How?” questioned Alex with excitement.
“For that you must understand the basic principles of living and what life is all about.”
“Professor, can you explain this precisely? Please!!”
“Sure..” Thrun replied and continued, “What do we lack?”
“Patience,” replied Alex.
“Why?”
“Because we know, with every passing day we are running out of time.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because I know, today I am young but within a blink of time my youth will fed. All these busy hours of work will keep me occupied and I will loose the track of time. Though it may bring success or failure, happiness and sorrow, prosperity or hardship. A man with tight schedule runs out of time wherein a man who thinks he has enough ends up realising the same. Life is a process of organic growth while death is the ultimate reality. Afterlife an introspection of those who believe in spiritual awakening. We can grow with time but we can’t reverse it. What is done can’t be undone. Memories are either recalled or recorded as past events. We spend wonderful moments with our loved ones and at time also experience the awful ones. Love is the deep feeling of belongingness and affection with our soul mate, family and friends. The time we come to know they will be no more we become helpless. Today I feel the same.”
“Talk to me. We have shared professional experiences. Hope I could be of help to you in personal. Tell me, what bothers you?”
“It’s about Ila, the love of my life,” expressed Alex.
“What about her?”
“She suffers from Melanoma. A serious type of skin cancer. The doctor says she has a year to live.”
“I can understand your grief,” Thrun replied anxiously and patted Alex. He continued, “You answered one of my questions by explaining the basic principle of living. What about the second? What life is all about to you.”
“It is all about give and take. It is all about caring and sharing. It is all about making this planet worth living. We are already living in a paradise. A paradise our species has transformed to hell. Humanity was a gift to nourish this planet. It could have unleash the answers to make it indestructible. But what are we? Where are we heading to? We are simply the victims of the malice our ancestors have spread over past two centuries. We can’t breath fresh air, water has become a luxury, the food we eat is processed, the lands which reaped vegetation are infertile and barren. Life on earth is getting extinct. Even a human life is not valued,” Alex expressed the truth of life the way he had observed.
“Yes, it truly is,” agreed Thrun and continued. “There is no value of common man’s life today.”

The world they lived in was falling apart. Besides from humans, numerous other living species were endangered. The upper class and upper middle class had managed to live in the Dome Cities.

City Beyond was the place where lower middle and working class thrived.

Working from home through pod simulators and controlling the protobots in real world had become a fashion.

One human was eligible to use single protobot after he turned twenty-one. Every protobots had a batch name and identity of its owner.

These protobots were created so that humans could sustain longer avoiding the strain of the toxic environment they faced during their commute to work space and socialising. The choice was there to use a protobot or not. It was the lower class which had no choice but to get exposed and suffer early death.

Thrun added,”We made the protobots. They were created with an idea to sustain humanity but today every pod simulator and protobot is designed as per affordability. The invention of protobots has been a huge success and hence we must evolve. That is the reason we are about to stress on the point of perpetuity.”
“Shall we?” Alex asked being curious.
“We have already applied robotics, machine learning application and natural language processing in the protobots. It’s just that we need to think how to enhance Artitficial Neural Network to its next level.”
Alex thought for a while then replied, “The neural transmitter we use in a pod simulators to control a protobot can be used in other way.”
“What do you suggest?”
“We must use the neural transmitter to scan an digital blueprint of human consciousness. This blueprint can further be used in a dupebot which will be identical to this mortal person,” Alex paused.

“Go on,” added Thrun being intrigue.
“If we manage to implement this experiment successfully, we can attain perpetuity. We will be immortals.”
“Fair enough.”
“Do you thing it’s possible?”
“Its an idea worth making an ideal. An ideal of hope,” concluded Thrun.

© Rohan R. Pednekar 2019, All Rights Reserved.

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