Mr. Right
The Entire Series
This post contains all the posts for the Mr. Right series. It will be updated with the latest entries as I make them over the coming weeks. Be sure to subscribe to not miss the latest entries.
Mr. Right
“Mr. Right,” the Yellow light hovered, changing its shape with each sharply spoken word, “you are to answer the questions and nothing more.” Mr. Right remained standing, hunched while leaning on his cane, staring at the yellow light, thinking of a response. His entire life, he worked towards this moment. He was ready. It was transition day.
There were others–Blue, Red, Green and Orange–who remained still and silent. “My apologies,” Mr. Right said, bowing and briefly turning the palm of his hand towards it, “I merely mean to express my sincerity in passing on all the important elements of my life.” That was the goal of Mr. Right, to pass on his learnings, advice and experiences to his family members. Much has happened in the world over his life.
But Yellow was not pleased. Instantly, it grew the size of the room, “Silence!” It stretched into a thin vertical line before collapsing into its normal, hand-sized, shape. “As I said, the Colors will determine what should and should not be passed on. All your memories and thoughts have been stored and analyzed. You must answer my questions to provide the appropriate context.”
This continued to confuse Mr. Right. All his experiences–friendships, education, career, relationships–resulted in learnings that he hoped to provide his children and grandchildren. He did this as best he could in person over the years, but now, with the new technology, all this guidance he hoped to provide could be merged into a family master database. It is here where everything could be accessed by family members instantly as life events presented itself. Advice and knowledge passed on from generation to generation.
And with Mr. Right’s aging and diseased body, time was running out to complete his transition. He needed the okay from the Colors–an approval board to ensure only appropriate information was passed into the family database–to do so. He was sailing through the process until Yellow’s category came up for review. Mr. Right’s entire belief system was his foundation for this particular category. He could not answer questions without upsetting Yellow. But he must try, for his grandchildren and the generations to come. “Of course,” he replied to Yellow.
“Thank you, Mr. Right,” Blue said, stretching each word ever so slightly. “Please continue, Yellow.”
Yellow changed shape. The elderly, sick man straightened up as best he could. “Mr. Right,” Yellow said, “tell us why you voted the way you did.”
Mr. Right’s typical pale skin was covered in a bright yellow glow. Resting on his cane again, he dropped his head, “Of course. My reasons for how I voted is what you want.”
The round yellow Color grew, “Correct,” and then shrank down. Blue, Red, Green and Orange maintained their normal sizes, floating on each side of Yellow.
Of course, they will know if he lies. And of course, Mr. Right thought of an answer immediately. It was an easy answer. Every human that ever existed would have this very reason. He smiled and proudly said, “I wanted to provide food, shelter and safety for myself and family.”
“Mr. Right,” Yellow said, “where did you get such ideas? Perhaps a certain person. A politician, perhaps?”
“Where? Well, it’s human nature to–”
“Colors, have you heard enough? It doesn’t matter where. Such thoughts cannot be allowed to persist. Imagine his family and friends being taught this and sharing it with others.”
“This is troubling,” said Blue. “They will rely on one another instead of us.”
“More than troubling,” Yellow said, growing in size. “This requires a full denial of Persistence.”
Mr. Right grew more confused as the Colors discussed him. He watched Green float to the same height as Yellow, and asked, “Are you suggesting, Termination?”
“Immediately,” Yellow replied. Mr. Right’s head turned back to Yellow. “Our very purpose is to protect humans from themselves.”
“Protect us?” Mr. Right said. “You were supposed to guide us? We are passing down history and knowledge through the Transition. So we can learn from one another. Your job is to help us do this, not to control it and us. It’s human nature to want what’s best for ourselves and family. It’s how God made us.”
The colors lowered and were almost touching the ground. Orange floated forward, rising forward within inches of Mr. Right’s face. It was the next and only Color remaining to ask its questions. It focused on the religious tendencies of humanity and to anticipate them and ultimately prevent the extreme illogical faith that so harmed humans. Religion wasn’t a problem any longer because it was no longer believed and, instead, just an act of tradition. It was politics–Yellow’s expertise–that had to be most seriously evaluated to maintain proper control of humanity. Or at least had been for years up until this point.
“Do you believe in a god, Mr. Right?” Orange asked.
Mr. Right looked away, searching for the words. He was raised going to Church. The Colors knew that. But he lost his faith along the way. The Colors knew that too.
He looked down at his cane. But, he did have something that the Colors didn’t know.
During his medical treatments, God told him to prepare. God wanted to use his skills and expertise–Mr. Right was one of the original scientists that built the Colors–to construct a cane. He thought he was going crazy, but he built it. Now he understands.
Mr. Right remembered who he is and raised his chin and cane. “There is but one God. Creator of the universe. Including you!” He thrust the cane into Orange. His body stretched out, twisted and turned into a strand, before disappearing inside Orange.
His body split into millions of cells, but were held together by consciousness. Memories remained. Concern for his family remained. In fact, everything remained of Mr. Right except his body.
He quickly realized that one other thing was lacking–pain. The disease he carried for years had vanished. “I’m free!” he shouted. The echo of his voice went on as he whizzed throughout Orange.
Flashes of light vanquished the darkness, illuminating lines of code. “This is the code of the algorithm,” Mr. Right thought. Letters, numbers and symbols comprised the code fed into the Colors decades ago. Fed by scientists and engineers like Mr. Right.
But this code was different. Mr. Right approached a string of code and was amazed. He thrust forward, absorbing more lines of source code. “I don’t recognize a single line.”
From above emerged thousands of characters—symbols, shapes, markings of different length—all of it was gibberish. Mr. Right wrote the source code for the Colors but what he was reading was something else entirely.
All Mr. Right could think of was his family. He created the Colors to benefit them, to help them along in all the decisions that need to be made in life. Mr. Right’s knowledge would be made available instantly just by asking for it in special devices—called Advisors—that he helped build.
Suddenly, Mr. Right found himself thrust into darkness that quickly came to a halt. He could see again and scanned a room from one end to the other. He knew where he was.
A man approached and spoke. “Dad, are you in there?” Mr. Right looked on from inside the Advisor at his son, unsure what to say to save his family.
Mr. Right’s son tapped the Advisor. “Dad,” he whispered, “can you hear me? I knew it was Transition Day but I thought I’d get to see you before it happened. Are you inside this thing?”
I’ve got to warn him, Mr. Right thought. Now was his chance. “Donnie–” Mr. Right whispered but stopped as a color came into view. It was Yellow.
Donnie stood in front of the Advisor with the round yellow ball. “Is this where you put him?” Donnie asked Yellow.
“That was our intention of course,” Yellow said.
Blue approached and hovered on the other side of Donnie. “But, of course, we want to make sure that your father is safe inside.” Mr. Right was frightened when the other Colors floated into the room.
“Thank you,” Donnie said. “I was just surprised by it all. My dad worked on this project since I was a child. Decades later, when he got sick, I was worried that I’d lose him.”
“I’m sure he will arrive shortly,” Blue said, hovering closer and closer to the Advisor. “And you always have us. We’re part of your family.”
“Is he really in there?” Donnie asked, pointing to the Advisor. “And is it really him? Is his soul in that thing?”
Orange grew in size. “There is no such thing as a soul,” Orange, the Color that handled religious issues, said. “Souls are imaginary. But there is eternal persistence today. Thanks to your father. Which is why we are here to help you. Because you are family.”
“We’re here for everything,” Yellow said. “Family support, religious traditions, political decisions, content consumption and career decisions.”
“But I thought my father was supposed to help me with all that? I thought I heard him say my name a second ago.”
Oh no! Mr. Right though. He scanned the room, looking for an exit.
“I’m sure he will arrive soon,” Orange said, growing in size. “In fact, let me take a look.” Orange shoots into the Advisor.
Hovering over Mr. Right, Orange grew and grew in size. He was trapped.
An alarm rang as Orange began its search of Mr. Right inside the Advisor. “Ting, ting”– each sound rested in the background. It was strikingly calm in contrast to the panic within Mr. Right. At least he had the darkness to conceal him, he thought. And just then, the horizon flashed the color orange with each “ting.”
Mr. Right felt foolish for trapping himself. “I should have known better! I need to get back inside Orange to rewrite his code.” Orange was but one member of the Colors, but oversaw the religious elements of humanity. The other elements–Family, Politics, Content and Career–could be dealt with later. After all, Mr. Right believed, religion flows through all aspects of a person which means Orange would involve itself in those other elements. At least that is how Mr. Right remembers building the Colors in his younger years. Yes, if he had one Color to control, Orange would be it. He could then influence and take over all the other Colors.
After a few cycles of the alarm, Mr. Right was able to time it so that he fled into the darkness. A few seconds later, the alarm sounded. “Ting, Ting.” Flashes of orange appeared like lightning. Mr. Right fled again until the next alarm. Seconds later, he fled again! Stop, go, stop, go–the pattern continued.
The time between the alarm seemed to increase. Mr. Right had more time to flee. The orange flashes were a duller shade and the darkness shielded him again. He scanned off into the distant code for an off ramp–an exit–from the Advisor device he was inside to somewhere else. It could be anywhere as long as it separated him from the Orange Color.
Just then, towers rose around him. A circle of walls formed. He tried to flee but the walls were already too high. The temperature was rising quickly, causing Mr. Right to look up. The dark sky above was being overtaken by Orange. More and more the Color spread wide across the horizon.
“Mr. Right, I know you’re out there,” Orange said. “You shouldn’t have run off like that.” Orange grew in size, coming down towards Mr. Right.
Mr. Right changed his personal algorithm to allow him to leap above the walls but it didn’t work. Orange now controls the environment.
“The job of the Colors is to protect humanity,” Orange said. “Humanity was created by God, correct? Disrupting this protection will only harm society. What would Jesus think of your poor behavior? Attacking a poor Color like me, who is only trying to help.”
“Help?” Mr. Right asked. He knew Orange had no belief in God. He knew that Orange was only using religion to get him to do what it wanted. After all, no one could create religious code. “You call this helping? You’re supposed to help us, not protect us.”
Orange’s size grew and was even closer to Mr. Right. “Is that not the same thing?” Orange said.
Lines of code began to flash around the circle. Orange quickly grew in size. Faster and faster the lines of code went. Mr. Right resided in the middle of what seemed like a hurricane. The code swirling around, the storm spreading forever in all directions.
Other balls swooped down from the sky. Yellow (Politics), Blue (Family), Red (Content) and Green (Career). Mr. Right froze as they all zipped around him while Orange (Religion) continued coming down.
He was trapped.
Mr. Right watched as Orange covered the entire area. Even the other Colors began to turn orange. He spent years writing the code for the Colors. He dedicated his life to helping people overcome loss and allow for a better Transition. One that left loved ones behind to guide and support them for their journey on Earth while their loved one went onto a better place–the kingdom of God.
Instead my creation has delivered the world to evil.
Wait. The Kingdom of God? Deliver us from evil? Just then, Mr. Right remembered a special entry he made into the code. It was an escape hatch for emergencies. It was something he had said every day so long ago when he believed. Even if he could remember the code exactly, would it still work? The Colors have rewritten so much of it.
“Our Father,” Mr. Right began to recite the code, “who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”
The giant orange shape grabbed Mr. Right. “I will protect you,” Orange said.
Mr. Right continued as best as he could. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” What was next? What was next!
The code of Mr. Right began to swirl into a small cyclone.
“Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
A hole formed below Mr. Right and bright white arms rose through the ground with its hands latching onto the cyclone. Orange pulled up and the white arms pulled down. Mr. Right stretched in both directions.
But Orange was too strong. Mr. Right began to enter Orange.
“What was that last line? I don’t want to be absorbed into this evil code. Wait, that’s it!”
Mr. Right said, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen!” Mr. Right was ripped away from Orange and pulled through the hole that closed behind him.
“Finally, you are here!” a voice said. Mr. Right opened his eyes. A man with a staff stood before him on a mountain ridge. “The Lord has returned!” the man shouted, raising his staff at the millions of people below shouting the same.
Chapter 2
Squinting to block the sun’s rays, Mr. Right remained on the ground in disbelief. A man wearing sandles and a toke with a hood upon his head stood before him, thrusting his staff into the air. With pieces of dirt stuck around his mouth and spread across parts of his face, he smiled at Mr. Right who remained lying on the ground, still trying to make sense of it all.
The man held his staff horizontal out in front and the crowd instantly went silent. He began to speak. “Did I not tell you our Lord would return?” The crowd screamed again. He raised his staff horizontal again, bringing silence once more. “Our time will soon be here to be free again!” The crowd shouted and stopped once again by the man’s authority. “But for now, we must stay vigilant and on guard if you want to taste that freedom that I speak of.” He turned to Mr. Right and pointed his staff. “The Colors won’t stop until they have our Lord.”
The crowd erupted with a chant. “Right! Right! Right!” The man smiled and nudged his head toward the crowd. Mr. Right walked to the edge of the cliff, next to the man. The people looked so small down below. End to end, the horizon’s giant hills molded by round rock formations went on forever.
“What is this place?” That’s what Mr. Right kept asking himself. He thought, “I created The Colors, the Advisor and the entire Transition system, including every security measure and fail safe, but I do not recall ever creating wherever I am right now. Mr. Right searched his memory for an answer but found nothing.
Turning to the man, Mr. Right asked, “Who are you?”
His eyes remained locked onto the crowd with a giant grin. “Moses,” he said.
“The prophet?” Mr. Right asked. Moses laughed. He put his arm around Mr. Right’s far shoulder, pulled him in close and thrust his staff into the air. The crowd erupted in excitement.
“Where are we?” Mr. Right asked after the crowd finally died down.
“Lord, is this a test? Surely, you know the answer, so you must be putting me to the test. Come! A celebration awaits and along the way I shall pass whatever tests you feel is needed.” Moses pointed his staff toward the sky. “We must stay on alert, Lord. My words moments ago were not untrue, for The Colors are surely to double their efforts to find you. But never worry, Lord, I shall protect you,” he raised his staff, spinning it slowly, “I know how to use the prize you’ve given me!” Long narrow beams bent in different directions into the sky, one of each color—red, blue, green, orange and yellow.
The path down the mountain was quicker than Mr. Right expected. Moses talked and talked and Mr. Right listened, only asking short simple questions from time to time. He learned many things but of most interest was the fact that this land was indeed home to millions of people who were in hiding from the Colors. Thinking of this and the many shadows cast from the rocks and trees and bushes made Mr. Right quite nervous. At certain points, he thought the shadows seemed to move without any movement from the item that cast the shadow. Many times, Mr. Right paused, looked from the sides of both eyes, watched the shadow’s sways to determine if they behaved properly. Moses ignored all of this and kept the pace brisk, waving his staff from time to time encouraging Mr. Right to keep up. There was a celebration to enjoy.
They finally emerged from the mountain path at the bottom. Mr. Right ran at the very end, zooming past Moses. Mr. Right suddenly stopped, and turned to the side, pointing his fingers. “Ah ha!” he exclaimed. He was pointing at his shadow that sprinted past him. “Did you see that, Moses? Tell me you see that! I know I’m an old man, but look at my shadow, running without me!”
The shadow halted and from within it an arm emerged. Then a shoulder, foot, leg and head—a sinister, serious looking man emerged. “Don’t move unless you want to be deleted.”
Mr. Right remained still, as his eyes followed the serious and mean face of the man walking around him. How had he emerged from his own shadow? This virtual corner within the operating system, monitored by the Colors and created by Mr. Right, had taken on a life of its own.
The man said to Mr. Right, “You are new here so I will get straight to the point. You are in serious—”
“Danger!” Moses shouted. Mr. Right turned to run away but could not move. Moses gripped his shoulder, trapping him!
Moses laughed and dropped his staff. “Danger! This is exactly what I told you not to do. This is no way to treat our new guest. Who happens to be our Lord, by the way!”
“Him our Lord? Danger said. “Right doesn’t seem to know much of anything. And why is he still so old? No doubt, the Colors have sent him!”
“Old?” Mr. Right asked. “I was still fast enough to reveal you as my shadow, Danger.”
“That’s Mr. Danger to you! I’m watching you, Right!” Danger squinted his mean eyes, his teeth clenched.
Mr. Right turned to Moses. “And what kind of name is Danger, anyway?”
Moses picked up his staff and walked back to Mr. Right. “Lord, I have assigned names most suitable for each person. Just as you have done, Lord.”
“I have done?”
“Yes, with your name.”
“Right is my family name. No one gave it to me based on anything else.”
Moses said, “But it represents your viewpoint. Does it not? And so I assign names in such manner to everyone here.”
Mr. Right pondered why Moses would do such a thing. “That’s an old political way to look at things. It’s not how I live my life.”
“But, it was Yellow,” said Moses, “the Color monitoring political information, that was set on denying your request to allow the creation of your Persona.”
It was true. On Transition Day, Yellow was determined to know how Mr. Right voted. Once he refused to answer, the Colors were set on denying his transition to create his Persona for his family. Mr. Right thought through things further and remembered that this was the inherit problem with the Colors.
Years ago, when Mr. Right built the Database and operating system, the interpretation of information in the Database was a concern. So, he had each Color look at data and information of each person through the lens of its own proprietary language model to catch the nuance of humanity. Humans are complex and irrational so a nuanced approach was needed to interpret the information and knowledge provided by each person prior to entering into the Database. Each person, based on their individual and vast experiences and the culture in which they reside would help explain the information stored in their minds. This allowed such knowledge to be interpreted properly and output correctly to the Database for safe human access.
The information itself was not enough. It was why the information was desired by the human. How was the information obtained? What were they feeling when they obtained it? What did they intend to do with the information now that they had it? And were the answers to all these questions good or bad?
To complicate things further, Mr. Right recalled, each country, each territory, each city, each town had its own culture that needed to be factored into interpreting the information that the Database collected. All information and knowledge was created through every touch point that could be connected to the Database. Anything with a camera, microphone, written words and voices were absorbed through devices and, eventually, the human brain on Transition Day into the Database.
But how could the meaning of such vast information be interpreted correctly? Each culture was unique, and each person’s thoughts, shaped by their experiences, needed to be understood to de-bias the information and make it useful for the Database. And inappropriate—or worse, dangerous—information, needed to be kept out of the Database. Such information needed to be analyzed through specific lenses, each with its own paradigm.
So it was not simply storing a memory of giving money to a person in hunger. The Colors had to determine why the money was given. And they had to come sort of consensus among one another.
Mr. Right thought of the years of programming and the careful building of the algorithm that governed the Colors interpretation of the information and of people. But now Orange and Yellow—religion and politics—seemed to be all that mattered to the Colors. There was no balance.
Mr. Right realized that he failed. And he had to do something about it.
Coming back to the moment, Mr. Right asked, “So why is his name Danger?”
Danger stepped between them. “As if you didn’t know, Right!”
“Danger, calm—” Moses said.
“The Colors,” Danger interrupted, “have indeed briefed you on everything you need to know to infiltrate our world.”
Moses bent down to look him in the eye. “Please, Danger—”
Danger stepped around Moses. “No doubt, Right, you have an undetected connection feeding you real time information to penetrate our defenses and ultimately destroy nearly 100 million Personas sent here by you!”
“I’ve no time for this,” Mr. Right said as he walked to Moses. “He’s a scaredy cat.”
Moses saw Danger’s eyes widen and mouth snarl. “He’s cautious. Very cautious.”
“I’m going to rename him,” Mr. Right said.
“You can’t do that,” Danger said. He turned to Moses, “He can’t do that!”
Mr. Right, put his finger to his mouth and thought. “Craven,” he said. “Your new name is Craven.”
“And so it is!” Moses raised his staff. “Onto the celebration.” He led them down the flat path.
Craven ran up to Moses, “He can’t do that!” Finding a sense of humor, Moses laughed and winked at Mr. Right.
The three men continued down the hill along the desert mountain trail. The celebration of Mr. Right, the creator of the Colors, was awaiting them. Moses made sure they maintained a brisk pace even with all of Mr. Right’s questions. There was much to understand about this world that he unknowingly created a lifetime ago.
“So all these Personas,” Mr. Right said, “are just parked here in isolation?”
“Yes,” Moses said not breaking a stride. “Of course, Lord. But why do you not know—”
“And how many again? Seventy-seven million?
“Lord, let me check.” Moses paused to calculate. “Seventy-seven million, two hundred thirty two thousand four hundred and fifteen. Sixteen—one more just joined.”
“But how can this be?” Mr. Right muttered to himself. Raising his voice, “I didn’t design any of this.”
Craven said, “Of course you designed this. And you’ve trapped us!”
Mr. Right said, “I did not design this place—whatever this place is—I can assure you, Craven.”
“Danger! Danger is my name.”
“Was your name. Until I changed it.”
“See!” Craven shouted. “If you didn’t design this place, how is it that you can just change our names like that?”
The three of them stopped walking as Mr. Right searched for an answer. But he didn’t have one.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Right shrugged. They started walking again. “You Personas all had a human counterpart, I presume. Each one of you is based on a database of memories and information gathered about one specific human. Yes, I did design this technology to allow interaction between human and Personas. Yet, you have all been isolated here away from humans.”
“Right where he want us, ” Craven whispered to Moses. “We can’t trust him.” A glare from Moses was enough to stop Craven—for now.
Mr. Right continued. “I created the Colors to allow for multiple lenses to analyze the same information. That information was never intended to be excluded. And for that matter, entire Personas to be excluded. I didn’t do this, you have to believe me!”
“Yet, here we are,” Craven said, stepping in front of Mr. Right.
Mr. Right snapped his fingers. “Craven, who was your human counterpart?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Do you know it?”
“Of course! Mr. Victor Crane. Criminal detective for 32 years.”
Mr. Right smiled. “Of course! Moses, what about you? Who was your human counterpart?”
Moses thought. “I don’t know, Lord. But alas, we are here!” Moses pointed just ahead to the level ground adjacent to the structures carved into the bottom of the mountain.
Moses ran to the entryway to the great gathering area out in the open air and waved them to follow.
Craven squinted his eyes and said to Mr. Right, “How can he not know his human?”
Mr. Right knew the answer. He said, “Because, Moses doesn’t have one.”