gTat (part 1)

The scientist sat down next to the girl. He had a pierce nosed and right eye brow. There was a tattoo on the back of his neck but she couldn't make out what it was. It looked as though it was part of a much larger tattoo.

"I am required by California Federal law to inform you about the consequences of getting a genetic tattoo." He said.

"Ok." She said, knowing all what he was going to say after looking it up online.

This is the first time the girl had been in a genlab before. The place was dimly lit save for a bright light by a table that looked like a doctor threw it out. There was loud rock music playing from headphones by a screen.

"Here hop up on the table here," he said. She complied, and he continued, "A genetic tattoo is permanent. There are some procedures to reverse the process but there is no guarantee any of the procedures will be successful. Your genetic tattoo will be in your DNA for the rest of your life and may or may not be copied into your children's DNA and children's children's DNA and so on." He continued the copy that he had to speak multiple times a day. "There is a slim chance that implanting information will cause a genetic disorder in yourself or your offspring, however that chance is next to nothing. Do you have any questions for me at this time?"

"No."

"Ok, I'm going to screen your code so I can program the dust to you." He said, slipping back into the vernacular dropping 'genetic' from 'genetic code' and referring to nano-tech as 'dust'.

"Ok."

He stared and his computer for a while. The colors of the computer danced on his face. "You said this is your first gTat, right?"

"Yes."

"Because if this is you, you already have one."

"What?!"

"One of your parents must've gotten a gTat."

She lol'd. "My parents?! Yeah, right. My parents barely even have tattoos, they would NEVER get a gTat."

"Well ONE of your ancestors did, because the header information is here." The scientist beckoned her, "Here take a look at this."

She walked around to look at his screen. All she saw was a jumble of numbers and letter in various colors.

"You see this right here is the header information that says a gTat is being inserted, but the rest I can't make out. It's all static."

"Static?"

"Yeah, usually people will get text imprinted, last names, Chinese characters, that kinda thing. SOMEtimes, someone'll get a small image, and it'll look kinda like this, but I tried opening it as an image and it looks like more garbage."

The scientist tabbed over to an image of randomly colored pixels.

"What is it?" The girl asked.

"I dunno, I've never seen anything like this before. If I were you, I'd go home and ask your folks about this."

To be continued...

Unified Information Against Entropy

We're here at UIAE combat Entropy however we can. Where it's research into a Perpetual Motion Machine or investigating nanotech to exploit the statistical probabilities that arise when small systems decrease the amount of entropy, we're there.

Entropy effects us all and has become a universal concern. There is not one man, woman, or child alive that hasn't been touched in some way or another by entropy. Our government sits idly by while everything around us is falling apart. Religion teaches us to accept entropy as part of some master plan. But not UIAE.

We here at UIAE have a vision. A vision of a deathless, decay-less world. A world in which information is allowed to thrive, unencumbered by the second law of thermodynamics. We see a universe where the heat death of the universe is replaced by the birth of beautiful and complex information. Thank you.

The collapsing wave

A surfer stands on the beach looking out at the intercontinental ocean. A huge wave had been swelling for 14 billion years. So big was the wave that water receded far from the coast and evidence of sea creatures could be seen on the drying new land. A life guard stands next to the surfer.

"Why didn't you surf this one?" She asks.

"I thought I'd watch instead." He replies. "See that right there? Life just formed."

"Too bad the wave is about to crash."

"Maybe, maybe not."

"It's already breaking, it's going to crash."

"With the complexity growing, it might be a controlled crash."

"There's never been a controlled crash."

"Yet." The surfer says, hopefully.

"How many waves will there be?" She asks.

"How many can a life guard create?"

Visitors

Two beings from a higher dimension appear in Times Square.

"You see?" One says to the other, "I told you."
"You're right, " the other one says, "we'll scrap this one."

As onlookers stare in shock at the odd-looking strangers, our universe winks out of existence in an instant.

Next Messaging

The sun, fatter now, hung like a ripe fruit over the pacific ocean. Clouds spotted the sky, colored like the red and orange ashes of a dying campfire trying to squeeze one last round of laughter between old friends. Highway 1 was a ghost town save for two vans hauling music equipment. The band Speeding in the Rain had just played their final show in San Francisco and are heading back to their home town of Monterey, California.

Josh, the bass player, riding shotgun in a van with Devin driving, stared out off the edge of the western world into the ocean that ended only on Japan's beaches. Devin was following the van of the rest band members along California state route 1 when he felt the familiar buzz on his thigh. Instinctively, but slowly, he withdrew his cell phone from his jeans that he always wished weren't as tight when his cell phone rang. He looked quickly at his phone to see who was unknowingly interrupting his solitary commune with nature.

"Hey Hannah" Devin said to Ian the drummer's girlfriend.
"Hey, is everything ok?" Hannah asked.
"Yeah everything's fine, why?"
"What the fuck?! Why is Jeremy sending me these text messages saying Ian's dead?" Jeremy and Ian are the other members of the band in the van Devin's following.
"What? Ha ha I don't know, he's probably just fucking with you." Devin said, reassuringly.
"That's what I thought but I called Ian and he didn't answer."
"Well he's driving the other van. That's probably why he didn't answer, " Devin paused, then added joking, "I shouldn't have answer either, you're going to make ME crash."
Normally this is where Devin would start flirting with a girl he has on the phone, but this was his friend, and drummer's girlfriend so he wasn't sure how to act. Thankfully, she began ending the conversation.
"Well, if you talk to him--if you stop somewhere before getting to Monterey have him call me," Hannah said.
"OK, will do."
Keeping his eyes on road and reminding himself that he was driving a van full of heavy and hard music equipment, Devin return his cell phone to his jean pocket.

Josh, riding shotgun, left his conversation with the universe and asked Devin, "That was Hannah?"
"Yeah, she said Jeremy sent her a text message saying Ian died."
"Huh. That's weird."
"Yeah, that's what I thought, but you know Jeremy."
"Yeah." Josh said, not knowing exactly what Devin meant by, 'you know Jeremy'.

Jeremy, the singer, always had that detached look in his eye. He looked like he was surprised and up to something at the same time, as if he just landed on an alien world and decided to blow it up immediately. Josh decided to end his break in conversation with the universe with a call to Ian to see what they were up to.

As the phone rang Devin and Josh watched the van being driven by Ian suddenly drive off the cliff and into the pacific ocean. It all looked like scene from a movie, it almost seemed cheesy. But in a few seconds, lead rocks were formed in the stomachs of Devin and Josh as they realized their lives had just drastically changed.

The next few hours were a blur of running, calling, and yelling. It turns out Ian had 'lost control' of the van and it descended to the rocky beach below. Jeremy who was wearing his seatbelt had lived, whereas Ian who wasn't wearing his seatbelt smashed his head open when the van first hit the rocks on its way down the steep cliff. After the ambulance had arrived and picked up Ian's body, Jeremy instinctively reached for his cell phone to send a text message.

"OMG. we were just in an accident. ian is dead." He sent this text message to Ian friends, including Hannah.

Hannah, upon reading the text message, called Ian immediately hoping that Jeremy was just messing with her. Every unanswered ring cause her stomach to sink a little more. Jeremy was both dead and driving in the past. As soon as his voice mail message started she hung up and called Devin.

"Hey Hannah" Devin said.
"Hey, is everything ok?" Hannah asked.
"Yeah everything's fine, why?"
"What the fuck?! Why is Jeremy sending these text messages saying Ian's dead?"
"What? Ha ha I don't know, he's probably just fucking with you." Devin said.
"That's what I thought but I called Ian and he didn't answer."
"Well he's driving the other van. That's probably why he didn't answer, " Devin paused, then added joking, "I shouldn't have answer either, you're going to make ME crash."
"Well, if you talk to him--if you stop somewhere before getting to Monterey have him call me," Hannah said.
"OK, will do."