[WIP] Guru Meditation Error

This document is published in memory of Anna Harren. Sorry I never got it finished, I promise I'll finish it one day.

Alex found himself, again, staring at the flickering display of his workstation instead of sleeping. He didn’t want to go to sleep, that was when the bad thoughts manifested themselves as terrible visions. His head wobbled a bit as he yawned, pausing for a moment he reached for another can of cola.
This project had been keeping his attention for some time now, he appreciated it, it kept his mind off other things. Code was predictable, clean, understandable, not like the thoughts that piled through his mind on a daily basis. However, he’d reached a sticking point, something that should have been simple turned out to be not so simple. He’d surrounded himself with programming manuals, magazines and other resources to no avail. Taking a swig from his cola he decided to check his thread on BufferUnderflow to see if it had got any responses yet. A community of people doing stuff like this daily, someone must have a response. Alas, no reply, just the inevitable notification that his post would be closed if nobody replied to it in a week, and that he was not permitted to bump it back to the top of the list. He sighed and went to close the page when a pop-up ad appeared on screen. Grumbling he moved to close it first, his ad-blocker must be on the blink again, but the content caught his eye.

“Frustrated, bored, lost for inspiration?
Tired, lonely or battling dark thoughts?
Click here to experience ZenTranquil, AI Guided Meditation*”

He paused with his cursor over the close button on the ad, then opted to click it. He was totally stuck, might as well see what snake oil was being pushed at him for a laugh.
The page loaded quickly and already imparted a relaxed, stress-free air about itself. It was rather disarming.

Welcome to ZenTranquil, the only AI guided meditation service on The Net.
Find yourself in a blissful digital world where the stress and strain of reality is blocked out, allowing for introspective self reflection.
Guided by the world’s most advanced Guru AI, each session is individually tailored to the subject and is built dynamically as the subject provides feedback.
The service is FREE and funded by an AI Psychology Research Grant from UC Berkeley. In exchange for the use of this service, you agree that anonymized data may be passed to research teams at UC Berkeley and their partners as outlined in our privacy policy.
A Type 3, or later Neural Interface is required to use this service.

Alex scrutinized the page a little more, along with the privacy policy. It all checked out, even Berkeley’s page made reference to it as a service they were funding. The testimonials were all positive as well. May as well give it a shot.
Signing up was simpler than he expected; name, age, location, no other details were asked, no Meyers-Briggs based personality test (as seen on so many other sites); just a single executable file awaiting download. He went hunting for the cables to connect his neural interface to his workstation whilst he waited for the download, it had been a while since he’d used it much preferring the traditional keyboard interface to any kind of virtual world.

His room seemed to dissolve around him as it was steadily replaced by the representation of the ZenTranquil service, a small wood panelled lobby with a desk at one end, behind the desk sat a construct. Feminine in build, it’s low polygon count and plain mapped surfaces left a lot to the imagination.
“Welcome to ZenTranquil,” it said, it’s artificial female voice quite clearly artificial, “Please sign in.” it gestured to a screen sitting on the desk in front of it.
Alex approached and keyed in the credentials he’d signed up with, as soon as he submitted them the quality of the world around him skyrocketed. The lobby area was very large, behind him where there had only been sliding doors was now a small stone bridge over an artificial stream, an endless loop of water pouring from a pool above, into a pool below. The pool and the stream themselves had a few koi fish, idly swimming against the current. High vaulted ceilings stretched beyond the limited render distance of his client. A soft light bathed it all and a feeling of calm came over him.
“Hello Alex, thank you for signing in! You may call me Anna.” the construct on the desk chimed, her voice no longer artificial. Turning to look at her again Alex saw that her simple construct appearance had been replaced with that of a pink bird, her soft smile adding to the overall relaxing and calm atmosphere. “I see this is your first time logging in with us, can we have your permission to perform a quick neural map via your neural interface to personalize your experience and help track your progress through treatment?”
Alex pondered for a moment, that was an alarming amount of data that they wanted access to, but everything had seemed solid so far. “I authorize read only access to my neural map.”
“Excellent!” the construct chimed once more, “Please, take a walk around the lobby whilst we assign you a Guru. Information points are located throughout the lobby and can be activated with a touch. We hope you enjoy your stay!”

Alex’s walk around the lobby was like trying to navigate in a dream, whenever he looked away from something and then looked back it had changed. Except when it was a feature he was particularly fond of, then it seemed to stay. The central water feature and the small stone bridge the centrepiece for this ever-changing world. He felt more relaxed already.
“This is a call for, Alex, you have been assigned Guru Na’im. Please go to Garden 3 when you are ready.” the constructs voice rang through the lobby.
Alex walked through the lobby and back past the front desk, the Bird smiled at him as he passed and gestured towards the corridor that had seemingly materialized to one side of her desk. “Garden 3 is the third door on your left and will be illuminated. We hope you enjoy your session.”

Garden 3 wasn’t what Alex expected in the slightest. It was a small back garden attached to the back of a terraced house. Two tiers, with a high fence surrounding the perimeter. Patio and decking interwoven with each other, a small water feature could be heard somewhere, but Alex hadn’t seen it yet. Small plants and shrubs were dotted about the flower beds in front of the fences and in simple terracotta pots scattered around the patio. Traffic could be heard in the distance, but it wasn’t terribly loud. As the door to the lobby clicked shut behind him, Alex turned to see the facade of the middle block of a terraced home. The perfect emulation of an inner city sanctuary.
“Greetings Alex, I am Guru Na’im.” a disembodied voice echoed quietly through the garden, “Please, do not let my lack of avatar disturb you. My garden is very small, and I like my visitors to be able to experience it fully.”
“If I hadn’t just experienced your lobby, I’d argue that it was a lack of server side processing power rather than personal preference.” Alex grumbled a bit, the disembodied voice was more unsettling than relaxing.
“I see I’m dealing with a bit of a cynic.” the voice seemed to drift across the garden, “Worry not, I like a challenge.”
“Less cynicism, more apprehension to be honest.” Alex muttered, his eyes still trying to track the source of the voice, “I would feel a lot more comfortable if you had an avatar I could interact with.”
A moment of silence was broken by a light rush of simulated air as the system rendered in the avatar of Na’im.

[WIP, document subject to change]