1 Year Zero

"Relax Idriss. I need you to relax."

Juan Eiffel tried to say it as gently as he could but the metrics on the screen told him that his experiment wasn't going as expected. His test subject was trying his best to memorize an article from a book. His head was connected to several non-intrusive sensors that were supposed to transmit his brain activity to a computer system. He was showing signs of discomfort and Juan's patience was running thin.

"Damn it!", Juan banged the table beside the chair his test subject was sitting on. The sudden noise disturbed the test subject further and the connection to was completely cut off. His system was unable to decipher the brain activity of the test subject anymore.

"It's ok. Don't get too worked up. We knew it was a tough project from the beginning. We can't get dejected every time this happens.", Zack Markel tried to calm Juan.

Juan Eiffel was a young french inventor who was able to graduate with a master's degree in computer science from MIT at the age of sixteen. He was offered several research positions from various reputed companies around the world but he wanted to develop the world's first fully functional artificial intelligence. Several big shots in the industry treated him like a naive kid but one investor believed in him. That investor was Zack Markel.

It was tough in the beginning but Juan managed to come up with a way to create a fully functional artificial intelligence. The world was chaotic so it was practically impossible to program all the choices in a computer. However, a human mind could filter this chaos and choose the optimum course of action with the best possible outcome. Therefore he designed a system to use the human brain as the CPU.

Juan wanted to test his system but he was sure that his peers in the scientific community would deem it too risky to proceed with human trails. Zack also did not want their ground breaking research to spread so he, along with Juan, set up a lab in a poverty stricken country in the African continent and recruited unemployed locals as their test subjects. His initial tests were going smoothly but his system shut down every time there was a strenuous activity in the test subject's brain. He tried several methods but was unable to maintain a stable connection to the system.

Juan felt like he had reached a bottle neck. He did not know what else to do. Just then, Idriss, his test subject, who was about to remove all the sensors, felt a vibration from his phone. He lazily checked his phone for the new message before taking off all the sensors. He had received a message from his friends reminding him about the soccer match they had in the evening. A smile lit up on Idriss's face thinking about the match. The sensors picked up his brain waves and were able to establish a stable connection. Juan, who was dejected a few seconds earlier, looked at the readings in astonishment.

Just then, Zack, returned with a cup of coffee in his hands and started telling Juan not to take the work too seriously. He still viewed Juan as a golden goose. He was just waiting for Juan to lose steam in his project so that he can nudge him into more profitable ventures like self driving cars or automated delivery drones. He said, handing the cup of coffee to Juan, "You know Juan, you look too stressed. If you love what you do, work becomes a play and you'll never be stressed again."

"That's it!" exclaimed Juan suddenly. Zack looked confused.

"I shouldn't make them work. I must make them play!", declared Juan. "Zack, we need to develop the most exciting game of the century!"