User visit: Guppy Sandhu

[a1enzo]

Enzo ushers Guppy into an upstairs room containing a massive bank of hardware, including lasers, monitors, and Big Red Buttons.

"Here it is. The digitizer." Beat. "And matterizer. And some other things. Maybe it needs a better name."

Comments

[guppy_sandhu]

"Er... theoretically yes, but it would take a long time. We mostly use cars and trains."

[a1enzo]

"With wheels?"

They know this perfectly well by now, but it still seems bizarre.

[guppy_sandhu]

"Er, yes, with wheels." Guppy says. "Along the ground. We have aeroplanes as well, but they're for bigger distances."

[a1enzo]

A pause, then another voice. "How does blood work?"

[guppy_sandhu]

"Err... Enzo, have you got anything I can draw a diagram on?"

[a1enzo]

"Amy?"

The rhythm guitarist passes Guppy a Paint file and a cursor, currently set to pencil.

[guppy_sandhu]

Guppy draws a pipe, a red blood cell, and some arrows.

"Humans have tiny pipes going through them called blood vessels. Blood is made up of cells, which absorb oxygen when they go through the lungs... Enzo, do sprites breathe?"

[a1enzo]

Much of the audience bursts into riotous laughter. Enzo gives Guppy a Look and breathes deeply and rather pointedly at him.

Really, Guppy is a sprite now. He could have figured that out.

[guppy_sandhu]

"No no, I mean, are we absorbing air or just going through the motions?"

[a1enzo]

"Oh. Yeah, but not oxygen. We get control voltage. We need it for involuntary functions."

[guppy_sandhu]

"Okay, so the blood cells take in oxygen, which is like control voltage, and take it to where it's needed. Then they let go of it in the organs, where it's needed."

[a1enzo]

The diagram is projected (by some means the mun is not privy to) onto the giant window in lieu of Guppy's human face. The audience contemplates the idea of a body filled with tiny plumbing.

"And if you're wounded, it all leaks out and the transfer's interrupted?"

[guppy_sandhu]

"Well it depends how much leaks. Humans can fix a little leak themselves. A big leak, we sew back together or use fusion technology to reproduce skin cells. If too much leaked out, the human would die."

[a1enzo]

There's a pause; those seem to be all the questions about blood, at least that can be articulated clearly.

"How do you grow?" hollers a girl. "Kids, I mean? Enzo said it's all analog!"

[guppy_sandhu]

"Well, the cells that make up our bodies divide." Guppy says. "In the skin and the internal organs. The bones have dividing cells too, and these pull the rest of us up to make us taller. We use food to make the energy to produce new cells."

[a1enzo]

Several voices call, "Make energy?" The rest of the audience murmurs. This is new.

[guppy_sandhu]

"Yeah, humans run off energy called 'ATP'. It's a chemical made of other chemicals in our bodies, using food." Guppy says, in a gross oversimplification of the mun's second year biochemistry syllabus.

[a1enzo]

The murmuring increases; "ATP" can be heard in it, along with "AC" and "DC". The creation of energy as an automatic bodily process, though nothing anyone expected, definitely sounds impressively Userish.

Another voice shouts: "What's 'free will'?"