//------------------------------// // 6 - Synchrony - for lack of a better title (rev1) // Story: Synch // by sunnypack //------------------------------// I paused, looking at my audience that sat enraptured by my tale. Time to mix things up a bit, I thought to myself, feeling an urge to tease. "So about Synchrony", I began, but was interrupted by Celestia. "You didn't finish your story about the castle", she reminded me gently. I gave her a lopsided grin, flexed my shoulders and looked pointedly at Luna. "But your sister is getting impatient", I told her. Celestia glanced at her sister and turned back to me. "Alright, continue", she said patiently. The other ponies leant forward in anticipation. ----- Though Synchrony came back, it did not appear on every Synch gear as it had the last time around. I found out by rooting around the extranet chatrooms and gaining a little insight on the nature of Synchrony. --connection established-- --chat log begin 10:02:20 PM CNT 2/2/39-- Anon1 entered. Anon1: hey guys! any update on synchrony? Anon2 entered. Anon2: lol isn’t that thing dead Anon1: i’m holding out :P Anon3 entered. Anon3: I heard some new guys on the scene got Synchrony again. Anon1: nooooo waaaaaay Anon2: nah fake gimme pics Anon3: uploaded an attachment Anon4 entered. Anon4: hey im dropping in dayum seems legit mayte Anon1: Anon3 where’d you get that? Anon3: It’s been going around the net on my zone. Anon3: uploaded an attachment Anon2: okay thats impressive Anon5 entered. Me: What’s the condition? Anon3: They say if you want it, you get it. Like a wish granter. A genie. Anon2: spooky Anon4: yeaaa you guys can try ill just sit this one out Me: I’ll give it a go. Anon2: GL Anon1: ill come to your funeral. Anon3: Be careful. Anon4: gg mayte --connection terminated 10:16:23 PM CNT 2/2/39-- There were some other miscellaneous pieces of information on Synchrony. Mostly there had been rumours about metadata containing some sort of code that would fry your brain if it ran successfully on the Synch gear. Or if you entered an abandoned building in some extranet-forbidden district, Synchrony would pop up after summoning it through some lengthy ritual. I dismissed a number of these extranet myths as just that, myths. I tapped a couple of impatient fingers on the keyboard to my desktop. I could trawl for a few more hours... I shook my head and finally logged out of the anonymous extranet forum. I yawned and stretched in my office chair and sunk my head into my hands. Rubbing my eyes, which always felt fatigued after viewing things on a physical screen, I slumped and tapped the Synch gear I had on my desk next to my hand. The ring of metal felt cold and lifeless but a faint feel of pulsing signals emanated from its smooth aluminium body. The pulse was almost like an aura of alien energy, giving it the faint semblance of life. Seeing the Synch always made me smile. The smooth precision of machining, metallurgy, electronics, microelectronics, nanoelectronics and the design and thought processes of thousands if not millions of humans made me feel as if I were indeed standing on the shoulders of giants. Seeing the Synch that lay dormant made me flash back to the chatroom conversation. I’ll give it a go. I’ll come to your funeral. I shuddered. What if I never wake up? How would I know the difference between what was real and what was not? Where did all those Sunken patients go? Will my personality change like theirs? So many variables, so many possibilities, the ideas and theories I had on Synchrony... they all clashed together in my head as a storm, no, a cacophony of conflicting for and against arguments in exploring the mystery of Synchrony myself. I thought about Marie Curie and how she was able to put the science first. I thought about how she died from radiation poisoning. With a growl I slipped the Synch gear onto my head, feeling the weight pressing down not unlike a circlet or a crown. I chuckled, the crowning achievement of the Quantum age, sitting on top of my head. With a few clear thought-signals I brought up the context menu and navigated to my personal files. I thought navigated quickly past one that was labelled ‘Life’ and opened the other named ‘Synch’. The Synch folder contained all my research of the last eight-months on the Synch and the technology behind it, all my custom programs and hacks were kept there, encrypted and away from private eyes. I quickly thought of the unique 'pass-thought' to get entry into the folder. Some incomplete knots were randomly distributed across my vision. Some were small games I decided to try my hand at making. Others were simple utility knots to help code on my Synch faster. I was only looking for one in particular however, its filename jumping out at me as soon as I lay thought to it. Synchrony. Yes, unlike the majority of others that Synchrony appeared and disappeared to, Synchrony stayed with me. Of course it had no particular name when I found it, I renamed it after hearing the poetic-like name that everyone had given it. I quickly realised that it was the Synchrony knot, only it wasn't actually tied to my central board. Confused, I had probed it with my utility tools and my relatively shallow knowledge of the knot programming language. I wasn't able to glean much. Only that it activated a relatively simple sequence of magnetic bursts within the Synch frame and surprisingly all within acceptable levels. Casting back to my visits to seminars and conferences held via video over the extranet, I remembered something that was said, almost as a passing note by an avid lecturer. “The Synch device is kept within very strict boundaries, the hardware is physically incapable of producing permanent harm such as lesions, or even temporary altered for more than a few minutes at a time. In fact, Grooble had designed Synch to work in its own sandbox. It couldn't affect your muscles, or memories, or your hormone levels and any other life support functions of your body.”, he began, staring directly at the camera. I remembered him most vividly due to his piercing blue eyes, which looked as if it could stare into your soul somehow. “The worst that can happen”, he continued, gesticulating grandly. “Is if you somehow activated diagnostics, which outputs maximum waves, provided of course the on-board safety hardware is not properly functioning. Even then you would only get bright lights in a seizure-like fashion.” The symptoms just didn't make any sense with the cause. How did Synchrony make people unconscious for ten minutes? Why did it change their personalities? How did they make those patients so happy? So many unanswered questions lay there, taunting me. I decided that wishing it into existence wouldn’t be that risky. So I did, on a whim. The thing is, it worked. Well at least, in a way. Synchrony never left my system but after rooting around my Synch files I found the mysterious unnamed knot sitting in my Synch folder. After examining the data distribution on my Synch I concluded that Synchrony had appeared on my device the same day that everyone else had initially found it, only it was tucked away, unlike the others, which had theirs proudly displayed in their central board. Of course, the small amount of metadata I was able to gain from it didn’t kill me like the extranet myths said it would. It contained only a creation date and a small comment tag. Interested in the comment tag I read: Look deep into nature, and you will understand everything better. After looking it up on the extranet, I found that the quote belonged to Albert Einstein, still famous today as he was a hundred years ago. It was odd, quirky and another mystery that revolved around the shadowed programmer and creator of Synchrony. Looking at the creation date made me laugh. Apparently, the programmer had a sense of humour and put the creation date exactly one year before Synch had even been developed. The rogue had managed to change the metadata, which was quite a bit of effort considering the internal security of Synch. I debated actually turning Synchrony on. It was stupid, it was risky, it was pointless, but for some reason I felt compelled to run it. I shook my head. My stomach grumbled. Sighing, I cleared my thoughts and imagined a white space, bringing Synch back into dormant state. I carefully lifted it over my head and placed it back on my desk to inductively recharge from the plate it rested upon. I ambled out of my room and into the kitchen thinking of getting a nice quick breakfast. The kitchen looked recently stocked. Huh, I guess my parents got around to automating the groceries. I opened the pantry to take a look at what was available. Inside were the colourful packages of consumer products that clustered the shelves. I considered a gel-pack but they never taste quite the same as natural ingredients. Shrugging, I opened my fridge and took a couple of mushrooms, onions, eggs and capsicum, intent on making an omelette. I glanced at the left over dumplings from last night’s dinner but decided to forego it and maybe eat it at dinner later. Whipping up a good meal, I pondered if I was ever going to run Synchrony, and if I would ever be willing find out how deep the rabbit hole went. I smiled to myself, taking a deep breath of the omelette as it hit the frying pan. It could wait, life was way too good right now.