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The Essence of Hell

by F.W. Shapiro

121 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0633; ISBN 1-4120-2805-1; US$15.50, C$18.00, EUR13.00, £9.00

This novel chronicles the progression of a cyber terrorist's descent into a cyber hell of his own creation.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Info

About the Book Socrates was a very strange child. His lonely existence as a child translated directly to a solitary life as an adult. His only chance at a meaningful existence was to create and enter a cyber utopia. To make his cyber utopia feel real he discovered a way to capture human essences and insert them into this world. Upon entering his cyber world he became trapped and was destined to an eternity in a cyber hell of his creation.

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About the Author Author F.W. Shapiro was born, raised, and educated in Philadelphia. He now resides in Fairfax, Virginia with his family. The author is an engineer by education and occupation. Mr. Shapiro regularly includes technical writing as part of his professional work. He has previously published a technical manuscript. This is the first serious science fiction work written by Mr. Shapiro. As is the main character in this story, the author is also an inventor. He has one patent pending for a state-of-the-art materials analysis technology.

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Excerpts

From the Foreword:

As Socrates's artificial world evolved his dementia deepened. Socrates yearned to enter this world of his creation. His brilliance would allow him to realize this dream. Finally, Socrates was about to enter a world in which he was in complete control and would not have to live in total isolation. Upon entry into this world, Socrates realized that he had not created a utopia, he had created hell!

From Chapter 6:

Socrates's initial successes resulted in a computer system, which could provide crude human like interactions. Although primitive, it could grow and evolve in its responses and did not need to be continuously reprogrammed. This in itself far exceeded what the current state of the art artificial intelligence technology could achieve. It proved to be a good initial companion to Socrates and best of all, it did not pass judgment. Still, there was something missing in the way the computer interacted.

The computer generated interactions were without personality. This missing personality Socrates called the "human essence". Without it, the emotions put forth by the computer still seemed fabricated and artificial. This would be a stiff problem for him to overcome. Socrates's lack of experience with interpersonal relationships would make it very difficult for him to duplicate the human essence in his artificial intelligence. Socrates knew very little about normal human emotions or relationships. How could he program these into his computer network when he knew nothing about them himself? This obstacle was agonizing for poor Socrates. This was like running an entire marathon just to fall short and collapse a few feet before the finish line unable to continue.

Although his new technology could provide interactions far more advanced to what he had previously experienced, it wasn't enough! Once again, Socrates began to feel deep dark despair creep back into his life. He did take solace in the thought that his vast intellect had helped him overcome great challenges in the past. This challenge however, would be the toughest ever thought Socrates.

From Chapter 7:

Socrates used his superior intellect to develop a new cutting edge technology so sophisticated that it could image a human essence. Socrates designed a detector sensitive to the minute electrical fields created by human thoughts and emotions. After much work, Socrates completed a camera, which could generate a low energy plasma designed to interact with a person's essence and convert it into a useable energy form. This energy could then be captured by the ultra sensitive detector and stored on a disc as data. Stored data could be later used to reproduce a snapshot image of a person's essence in Socrates's highly evolved computer network.

Socrates designed his "essence camera" to resemble an ordinary photographic camera. He did this so that he would not attract any unwanted attention if he chose to use it in public. He first tried his essence camera on the neighborhood dog Tiger. Tiger was a mixed breed beloved by all. No one was certain who owned him so he was adopted by the neighborhood. Socrates took a snapshot of Tiger and held open the camera shutter until the buffer was filled with data. He then raced back to his lab to download the data into his computer. Much to Socrates's delight, an image of Tiger appeared on his computer screen. The image completely captured the playful nature of Tiger and gave the illusion that it was real. Socrates was now ready to test it on a human target.

Socrates's first human target was Sarah his next door neighbor. She had straight blonde hair and dark brown eyes. Sarah was still tan from the summer and was quite captivating to see. She was not flashy but had a natural beauty, which made most women envious. Sarah was a very sweet kind hearted person. One day she noticed Socrates and waved to him. Once he realized that she was waving at him, he waved back. No girl had ever noticed him until now. After that first encounter, Socrates would always make a point to wave to Sarah but never summoned the courage to speak to her. This informal familiarity made her an easy first target for Socrates.

Socrates went out and imaged the essence of many different people. Some of these were people familiar to him and others were strangers. He noticed no lasting ill effects on any of the subjects that he had imaged. Only a short term look of disorientation was apparent immediately after being photographed. It was not Socrates's intent to cause harm to anyone with his camera. He just wanted to capture a little portion of their being for his artificial intelligence. Socrates quickly learned that each person's essence was unique, similar to a fingerprint. He also learned that each person's essence was ever changing. He discovered this by imaging Sarah several times over several days. Although similar, the image her essence produced varied depending on the emotion she was experiencing at the time. The task of duplicating a human essence was daunting. A still shot was easy to implement but an interactive essence would be needed for Socrates's artificial intelligence to achieve its goals. Socrates quickly realized that he would need to capture an entire essence not just a snapshot and incorporate it into his artificial intelligence.

After several months of trials Socrates had finally done it. He had designed a camera, which could not only image but also capture an essence whole. Once again, his first test subject would be the neighborhood dog Tiger. Socrates aimed his camera at the animal and fired it. Almost immediately Tiger stopped moving and collapsed staring blankly into space. He was still breathing and very much alive but was rendered instantly into a catatonic state. This effect was both surprising and a bit alarming to Socrates. After all, he had no intent to cause harm to his subjects.

Socrates carried Tiger home to his trailer and observed him for hours hoping to discover that this effect would only be temporary. To his dismay, the dog remained in a deep peaceful catatonic state. He pondered this result for many hours and then finally came to the conclusion that a being devoid of their essence was just a physical entity with no capacity to interact consciously. This created a severe moral dilemma for Socrates. He spent several restless hours silently debating the ethics of using this new capability he had created. Socrates had to weigh his selfish objectives against the unknown consequences to his subjects.

From Chapter 12:

The reality of Socrates's existence in the cyber world he created had finally set in. His essence was the only one there. Socrates's cyber utopia had been transformed into a cyber hell. His essence was trapped in an isolated world completely devoid of all human interaction. The back door that Socrates had created to re-enter the real world required his computer network, which was now completely destroyed. Even if Socrates could have gotten his essence back out of the cyber world it would have had nowhere to settle. His body was destroyed by the fire and burned beyond recognition.

Socrates knew something that his captives had not and this thought sent him into a deep dark depression. His essence had no physical requirements to live. This meant that in theory his essence could languish forever in this desolate cyber world. Most essences truly needed only mental stimuli to continue to survive. Required stimulus was typically in the form of human interactions. Socrates lived his life with minimal human interaction. He had learned to thrive without human interactions. Socrates knew that his essence would never die just deteriorate slowly into cyber oblivion. Socrates's now believed that his essence was condemned to an eternity trapped in a solitary hell eerily mirroring the life that he had lived on earth.

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Catalogue Information

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