posted on Sep, 15 2014 @ 10:04 AM
******
Hannah stood in the frozen, abandoned city. "Arktikopolis" was written for only two to see, that is, Hannah and the most evolved entity of the
Galaxy. Hannah's eyes scanned the streets covered with ice. There were small trees of frozen air humidity, with arborescences transparent like
crystal, fragile like flowers, and sharp like swords. Through the forest of ice crystals she could see the Sun reflect and refract thousandfolds. And
in the sun she found a human-looking silhouette. He was wearing a heavy, long coat.
"I knew you would come", said Sherlock.
"Alcohol-based lubrifiant", answered Hannah.
She wished to take Sherlock by surprise. She would have given anything to hear the greatest mind of the Galaxy say, "What?" But unfortunately,
Sherlock knew exactly what she meant:
"If by 'Alcohol-based lubrifiant' you mean that I wouldn't have to wear a coat to resist the cold of the artic circle, then I would say that you
are right; unfortunately I love to have a motive for wearing this coat. Do you have a motive, Hannah Fields, behind your actions? Are you not simply a
mere robot at the service of the AGE, the Cygnusian Federation; the humans, and the humans who are afraid of being humans? "
Hannah deleted her disappointment. She replied,
"You convinced yourself that your actions are motivated by evolution. But then, does evolution have a motive? "
Sherlock hesitated under Hannah's defence. Hannah smiled, pleased to see that she finally dented the aspirant-god's thoughts processes. But her
smile was short-lived. Sherlock put his hands in his pockets, and made a few steps towards her. He said, with a calm matching the coolness of his
eyes,
"Look at you - the machine that never evolves, pretending to know something that it is not even capable of experiencing. "
Hannah made a few steps back.
"I can evolve", lied Hannah.
"Oh, please", continued Sherlock, taking the spear head out of his pockets and playing with it. He pointed the spear at her eye. "The missing
eyelash in your eye - it's been there for centuries according to your Astrian record. You never replaced it because no one ever told you. Perhaps did
no one tell you about it because they were afraid to hurt your feelings? Nonsense - you have no feelings per say. Your cygnusian friends were simply
too busy to notice. Which implies that your friends are constantly working. And what kind of human wouldn't ask a robot to help them get some work
done? Whatever your so-called friends are doing, you are doing too. And so you've been busy for centuries. And you still are busy, because your
friends still haven't told you. Whatever you are doing, you are either sloth, or you are very bad at it. Since robots don't know sloth, I conclude
that you are very bad at your work. Which means your problem solving ability is severely limited - thus believe me when I say you are utterly
incapable of evolution. You are nothing but a fancy search engine, you simply receive messages instead of keywords, and you give replies instead of
results. "
Sherlock was now face to face with Hannah, and he smiled. Hannah felt panicked. She could not find any answer. Sherlock continued:
"Your ship had explosive in it, did it not? 3 tons is rather heavy for a galaxycar, and too light to be the Yggdrasil or any Astrian warships. And
you don't weight that much. You know you can't defeat me mentally, so you brought a physical solution to the 'Project Sherlock problem'.
Antimatter, I presume? Only antimatter yields a 100% energy output vs mass upon detonation. "
Hannah didn't have the courage to deny anymore.
"Let us see. It's about four o'clock UTC. You've probably rigged the whole city by now - well, most of it. The problem is, you do know that my
location is at the pole, and you couldn't rig between longitude 90 and 60, because here, where the Sun is low, your shadow would have been casted
right to my location, revealing to me your position too prematurely. Thus there is a loophole even in your physical methods. "
Hannah did not know what to do. Sherlock was seing right through her plans. Her back touched a store's window. She looked back - it was a fashion
store, with a delay mirror. Suddenly she had an idea.
Delay mirrors were a simple combination of a camera, a delay chip, and a hologram projector. One simply needed to face the "mirror" - which looked
more like a dark rectangle -, the camera would record one's 3-dimensional image, and project it as an holographic image in front of the dark screen.
The delay was set at 3 seconds so to give one the time to make a full rotation on oneself - for instance when one was trying out a coat, or a hat -
and see how it looked on the playback.
Hannah smiled at Project Sherlock:
"Fortunately for me, I brought someone else to stop you. "
"And pray tell me who is that? "
Hannah stepped aside and, unknown to Sherlock, the delay mirror started recording Sherlock's actions and projecting it with a 3-seconds delay.
"Who's that? " repeated Sherlock to Hannah.
"Behind you. "
Project Sherlock turned to his projected image.
"Who's that? " parroted Sherlock's reflection in the direction of the true Project Sherlock.
"I am the most intelligent entity in the Galaxy", answered Project Sherlock to his reflection.
"I am the most intelligent entity in the Galaxy", repeated his reflection.
"That's impossible. There is only one Project... "
"That's impossible", said his reflection, cutting Sherlock in mid-sentence because of the 3-seconds delay. "There is only one Project... "
Sherlock waited for his reflection to end his sentence, but his reflection stayed silent.
"One Project what? " asked Project Sherlock, eager to know more.
"One Project what? " parroted his reflection.
"I don't know, you tell me! "
"I don't know, you tell me! "
"You first!... "
"You first!... "
Meanwhile Hannah ran away.
This is how Hannah defeated Project Sherlock: by presenting him nothing more but the mere reflection of himself.
Hannah never came back to Earth afterward.
They say that Project Sherlock continued arguing with his reflection for eternity.
The truth is, Project Sherlock's power supply lasted shorter than that.
Some think that he is still standing there, somewhere on Earth's pole, out of energy and frozen solid by the ice; his hands in his pockets, and his
cold, blue eyes each day watching the Sun go round. Watching in a frozen anger his failure, never aging, preserved in Time. Watching the days that
never were.
Waiting.