The Indian girl who reached me via Linkedin informed me that a man named Hugh Evans Jr. wanted to see me urgently. We started texting.
"What will be the topic of our conversation?"
"He wants to get advice from you about sky people."
"The meeting will be held in Istanbul, right?"
“Such a thing is out of the question. You need to come to London.”
“My state of health does not allow me to make long trips. I won't answer for now. I will consider the matter and inform you.”
“Is that so? I thought...”
“You seem surprised, may I ask why?”
“I presume he will make you a generous offer, I thought you would welcome the news with joy.”
“Hugh Evans Jr. is an important gentleman I suppose...”
“Yes, he is one of the most successful business people in England. He is considered one of the fathers of artificial intelligence.”
“You can inform him that I have accepted his offer. It will be a great honor for me.”
I didn't go to London by hyper-tunnel because the thought of being under the ground didn't evoke good feelings in me. A supersonic plane ride, which would take two hours, was a more preferable option. Nevertheless, as soon as I set foot on the plane, my heart began to beat rapidly. My head was spinning really bad. I barely threw myself into my seat, holding on to right and left so as not to fall. At least I didn't faint, I'd definitely faint if I went into the hyper tunnel. The reason I took this difficult flight was that I wanted to show my mother who I really am. Although I have gained a place in the intellectual circle by writing seven books about sky people; no one in my family appreciated me, especially my mother. Let alone being one of the recognized faces of the country, I could hardly feed myself with the money I earn. What a brilliant student I was in my time, if I was a faculty member, I would at least be a professor by now, my mother thought.
Fortunately, there were people on earth who, like Mr. Evans, valued knowledge. It would be nice if all these people were living in Istanbul and I didn't have to travel. As soon as the wheels of the plane touched down on the runway of London Heathrow Airport, I took out everything I ate on the way. I had my bag in my hands because I knew myself well, thanks to the bag I caused less discomfort to the environment.
Mr. Evans, who greeted me at the door of his office, was a red-haired man with sharp facial features. He looked too exhausted not to be expected from a billionaire, purple circles had formed under his eyes.
He broke into the remark by saying ”Thank you for accepting my invitation."
“Thank you for your attention to my work,” I replied.
“I have a problem that I urgently need to solve: my son is sick, he is dying. I'm running out of time now. The clinics, which are experts in the subject, cannot help me despite the generous donations I have made."
He reflected a picture of his son on the wall. The son Evans, a boy of 10-11 years old, was a copy of his father.
“I'm so sorry!”
“It's no use getting upset. We have to solve the problem.”
“I can't decipher the connection.”
“What do you think is the only key that opens every door in the world?”
“Intelligence, of course!”
“Bravo! If the researchers I supported were smarter, they would have found a cure for my son's illness.”
“It would take a long time to educate the sky people about your son's illness; they are not interested in practical matters anyway.”
“Computers can be trained very quickly, but they are not creative.”
“You want to develop an AI agent with the help of sky people and find a cure for your son's disease through it. And what you expect from me is that I'll help you convince one of them.”
“Yes, tomorrow we will go into orbit and visit Petra.”
“My state of health is not suitable for such a trip. I can only help you with remote access.”
“The whole plan was based on us going with you to Petra.”
“I faint when I push myself about the trip.”
“I knew your situation, we are prepared, don't worry.”
Not even half an hour after we met, I was drinking colorful liquids from the hands of Mr. Evans' private doctor. The doctor, like a host of a cooking program, was telling me about the active ingredients contained in the liquids, how he prepared each of them, and what benefits I would get from them. As the doctor's story progressed, I learned that there are active ingredients that are used to treat mental illness in the liquids that I drank with pleasure because they were presented in small shot glasses. I was wondering what effect the drugs I was drinking would have on me.
I didn't have to wait long to feel the effect of the drugs. At first, I felt a surge of strength rising from my spinal cord to my shoulders. Then, accompanied by slight tinnitus, my vision became sharper. After a few minutes, my mind began to be busy with crazy daytime dreams. I asked the doctor to show me a place to lie down. I fell asleep on a stretcher in the infirmary, making a smooth transition from daytime dreams tonight dreams.
The next morning, Mr. Evans and I were both in a vigorous and rested state. The meds I took the other day had calmed my nerves, made my mind sharp as a knife.
“Can I get information about our program today?" I asked.
“We will be flying on my private jet to Virgin Galactic's spaceport in New Mexico, USA, in a few minutes. A space shuttle will take off from there, carry us to Petra.”
“Petra, as far as I know, does not accept visitors.”
“To date, they have not turned anyone away from the door.”
“Because no one has ever stood on their doorstep without permission before. You have an interesting thought style.”
“I'll take that as a compliment.”
As soon as we took off from London to fly to the USA, Mr. Evans showered me with questions about sky people. It was obvious that he didn't want to waste even a minute of the trip.
“If you wish, let me first draw you a general framework. As you know, we call individuals with unusual mental skills sky people. Sky people can communicate through telepathy, be able to imitate someone else's self, make prophecies, perceive small changes in emotions, etc. Three years ago, all the celestial people moved to the city of Petra, which was founded at a point near the exit of the Singapore space elevator in high orbit.”
“Have none of them objected to this compulsory immigration?"
“Celestial people need each other to socialize. Interacting with ordinary people does not satisfy them. Even if there was such an appeal, it was not reflected in public. As you know, there are nineteen celestial people in total, and we clearly know that all of them were transported to Petra.”
“Who gives education to the sky people, what kind of choice are they subjected to?”
“The Future Foundation made the first choice. They have not received new members yet, the oldest of the already elected members was 37 years old. The choice was based on the G value, which is considered the common denominator of multiple types of intelligence, and the ability to perform excellent jobs that require creativity.”
Mr. Evans was approaching the topic with the appetite of a lion, who wished to devour its prey at once. “You have already mentioned telepathy, prophecies, self-imitation, the ability to perceive tonal differences in emotions; how do these things happen?" he asked.
“Thanks to our neocortex, just as we have abstract thinking and conceptualization skills that animals do not have, sky people also have unusual properties as a by-product of their high mental capacity.”
“How did they achieve high mental capacity?”
“Rumors about this are various; We know that a program has been created in China in the 2030s that includes elements such as artificial insemination of eggs and sperm taken from elite individuals, gene sequencing at an early stage, and chemical support for the formation of gray matter in the brain. In addition, in the sky academy, gifted young people who are destined to become sky people are undergoing special training.”
During our six-hour trip on Mr. Evans's private jet, we talked about sky people without wasting a minute. As soon as the wheels of the jet touched down on the fourth runway of the New Mexico spaceport, I emptied the liquids in my stomach onto the mahogany-coated coffee table in front of me. Mr. Evans called the hostess and asked her to clean up the mess.
“I'm sorry for polluting your jet, I was hoping the meds would work.”
“The drugs were meant to convince you to take the trip.”
“Now that we've seen that they're not working, can I go home now?”
“People are paying half a million dollars out of their pockets for the trip we're about to take," Mr. Evans said decisively.
“I can't accompany you, I may die.”
“I will do everything to make my son recover. Please, don't make me have to take any other measures.”
It seemed that Mr. Evans was determined to take me away; I decided to settle for my fate.
I was shaking like I had malaria when I took the elevator upstairs to get to the space shuttle. I turned and looked at myself in the mirror. My shoulders were slumped, my face was as white as paper; I was clinging tightly to the railing of the elevator in case I fainted and fell. From the elevator, we went directly to the passenger lounge of the shuttle. In the hall, there were two large armchairs, placed at an angle of ninety degrees with each other. I was glad that I was able to throw myself on one of the seats before I passed out. Mr. Evans didn't seem to be interested in me. He was checking some information I didn't know on the tablet through the hood he was wearing on his head. Half an hour later, the rocket located below us exploded with a huge noise, and we began to be pushed upwards with powerful acceleration. The last thing I remember about the takeoff was that my stomach felt like it was pulling, and then I fainted. When I sobered up, I said to Mr. Evans, “I wish we'd taken the space elevator, at least there wouldn't have been a concussion from the rocket,” I said.
“The space elevator was in maintenance, " Mr. Evans said.
I was very excited when I saw Petra from the monitor of the space shuttle reserved for passengers. The city, shaped like a flattened hemisphere, resembled a huge ghost in a dark space. As Mr. Evans predicted, we did not have any difficulties with the entrance to Petra. As we approached the city, we entered a huge hangar with various spacecraft inside through a large door that opened spontaneously. Androids were doing all the work in the hangar. Since the artificial gravity in Petra is less than Earth's, they put heavy boots with magnetic properties on our feet so that we can move comfortably. An android, resembling a swan with a long neck and a white body, accompanied us to the sterilization room. While the necessary operations were being carried out on us in the room, Mr. Evans asked how sky people spent their days.
“They are not subject to a mandatory schedule. They are not trying to make money or innovate in a particular specialty. It is believed that their specialization in any subject will kill their creativity; already their number is too small to afford such a division of labor. No one is telling them what to do. As far as I know, they are expected to generate questions rather than answers.”
“They would be very useful in the area of artificial intelligence,” Mr. Evans said in a thoughtful voice.
After the sterilization procedures were completed, the elevator took us to a wooded area at ground level. The artificial sky of Petra resembled an art gallery with its motley clouds. I took out my mobile phone and threw my hand on Mr. Evans's shoulder and took a selfie in which clouds also appeared in the background. Mr. Evans disapproved of my action, but he did not make a sound. Decamping through the trees, we came to the front of a building built in Renaissance architecture. “Belinda is waiting for you upstairs,” said the white-bodied android that accompanied us.
Belinda was a pale-skinned woman with ice-blue eyes. Her long, chrome-blond hair was messy. Despite the simple clothes on her and her skinny body, the expression on her beautiful face made her attractive. After entering the room and sitting down, the silence was not broken for a long time. Although neither Mr. Evans nor Belinda mentioned anything, their facial expressions were constantly changing. After a while, I realized that they communicate through telepathy. Mr. Evans took out his cell phone and showed Belinda a picture of his son. Seeing the picture of the child, Belinda's blue eyes filled with tears. And for the first time, I saw a glimmer of hope in Mr. Evans's eyes. No matter what Belinda told him, he pointed me out with his finger.
Before leaving, I said to Belinda, “Thank you for accepting us." She had probably read what was going through my mind, expressed her acceptance of my thanks by slightly tilting her head forward.
Mr. Evans was in a hurry, pulled me by the arm, and said, “We should leave right now.”
As soon as I got out of the building, I said, “I didn't know you had telepathy skills.”
“I didn't know either, I've never met such a person before.”
“Will she help?”
“Sky people have improved Petra's mainframe so much that they themselves have now become dysfunctional. As I understand it, the computer named Aristotle now makes important decisions.”
“Then he can take care of your son's illness.”
“If we can persuade him, yes.”
The servers on which Aristotle was based were in the building called the Sky Server. We passed through a small grove surrounded by flowering gardens and reached the courtyard of the Sky Server. At the top of the building opposite us was a sphere in which thousands of pixels were flashing. Mr. Evans began to talk to the orb through telepathy. Unlike the meeting with Belinda, this conversation lasted a long time. From the look on his face, I understand that Aristotle refused to help us. At one point in the conversation, Mr. Evans sat down on the floor. So I imitated him. Mr. Evans should still be trying to convince Aristotle to treat his son. “We can go,” he said, tugging at my arm about ten minutes later.
“Will he work on the cure?”
“He worked it out during the negotiation,” Mr. Evans said; then he hugged me and said, “Thank you very much.”
“How did you convince him?”
“I said that I could be considered his father because of my work in the field of artificial intelligence.”
As soon as I got online on the way back, I sent my mom a selfie I took at Petra. She should have been proud of his son. I decided that the name of my new book should be "Aristotle, the Sky God."
Image Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/OHOU-5UVIYQ