by J. A. Hailey
“Oh, it’s just minor and marginal controls; of no practical purpose really, except, perhaps, to make them feel like big boys,” said Margaret, derisively.
“What controls? Everything for daily life is in their hands. As a matter of fact, we have actually given them a few new programs, made especially for them, without delay. Things like navigational and travel tools have been made and handed over as apps on their phones. What on earth could they be seeking now?”
This conversation, a few days after the humans had been discoursing on death at Mississippi High, was being held in Christine’s office in New York HC, an office she attended daily, relentlessly pushing her programmers to search for degrees of accuracy - in items that had already become near identical to source items in humanside!
The group of seniors entered just then, and found their way to seating, some of it in improvised lounging positions, so the atmosphere was relaxed and informal - of a group of friends getting on with something of common interest.
“What is it, Algernon? Or do you want to tell us, Margaret?” asked Maria.
“It’s actually an irritating attitude,” answered Margaret. “And that is why I have got both the humans sitting in the lounge, having coffee and waiting for you seniors to show up, so that they can annoy you themselves with their petty demands and their imaginary exclusions. I’m calling them in.”
On entering, the two humans were clearly taken aback on seeing that the entire seniors’ group had been called over.
“Didn’t need everyone,” said Michael, sheepishly. “What we have been complaining about are not real issues we are facing, but are more to do with how we are feeling about our interaction in public; specifically, of the image we project, which, as the only two of our species in this world, we imagine makes us stand out like sore thumbs.”
“Oh, discomfiture?” said Maria. “That’s not good, and it is certainly not our intention, which is, in truth, the exact opposite. We want you to feel like you are one of us, like you belong here, and that you fit in naturally, become like background wherever you go; be unnoticeable. I presume that’s what you’re wanting.”
“Yes, Maria,” said Sagan. “We don’t want to look like aliens in here, which is what we are, I guess.”
“Not at all, Patrick, and you’ll get the context of my rebuttal of you being alien beings to us, by remembering that we virtuals have human families, and that we’re all dying to unite with them, for which future joy, we have tried to become exactly like humans. We’ve done very well, and you should feel like you slot in automatically. Esme brings her mother and Sabine into screenside quite frequently, and they do not complain of feeling like outsiders.”
“ But that might be to do with the fact that Esmeralda and her friends, like you, Maria, manage those human consciousnesses, unlike these two people, who are created to be independent in here,” said Christine. “Would be a lot different, if with Esme or you or me, or with one of those other girls always around as sponsors, helpers and guardians; chaperones, basically.”
“Okay, agreed,” said Maria readily, and absolutely without resentment. “Let’s hear it then. Tell us what we can do, guys, to banish this feeling of alienation, or nakedness, or whatever it is.”
“Michael will handle the talking for both of us,” said Sagan. “He is the computer man in real life, and he will best know how to describe what we are feeling, and what we’re hoping can be done for us. It’s all computer stuff.” He laughed. “If medical, he would keep his mouth shut, and I would be doing the talking.”
“Okay then, Mike, start talking,” urged Maria, smiling.
“I’ll start with a question, after I have laid down the background, as we know it and imagine it to be,” said Gales. “We have become a little friendly with two gorgeous school teachers, I mean, gorgeous like you are also. When hanging around with them in Mississippi High, we were under a slightly uncomfortable impression that they were seeing us a little bit differently to the way we see ourselves.
“What I mean is this. We have been created in here to be like we are out there in the human world, and to Patrick and me it feels that in here we are quite like we are as humans.
“This is my question. Do you people, you virtuals see us somewhat differently?”
“Like Clark Kent, Superman, when using his X-ray vision?” interjected Sagan.
“Precisely,” agreed Gales, emphatically. “When in the company of the school teachers, we became aware that the matrix we are connected to is visible to virtuals. That is sickeningly embarrassing, and we have both begun cringing in public, although not here with you, because you are the people who have been doing the work on us, and we do expect you to see us in stages of creation, matrix, frame, windshield wipers, headlights and what not.”
“It’s horrible,” added Sagan. “We feel like dogs when entering a bar or cafe, and we were cringing in the HC lounge just now. It’s not as though anyone is mean, or even rude, like staring, but we know we are there as an eyesore, a blot on the landscape - something different; something that needs an effort of politeness, a pretend we see nothing different. Sickening.”
“What’s the solution, then,” asked Chang. “The matrixes exist and are visible to us, and we think they should be on you, or maybe it’s you who are in them, for some more time, to ensure that whatever can be collected has been collected in here.”
“Or what?” queried Singh. “Disconnect, and be damned?”
“Give us control, and we should be okay, if managing ourselves,” answered Gales.
“Control like?” asked Singh.
“Like, let us switch it on or off according to the situation. We have enough of the human in here to work without the matrix, I think. Well, actually, obviously we do, as the matrix is not an operating system, but only a collection system. If you remove the matrix from us right now, will we not continue to be exactly as we are?”
“Of course you will,” said Chang.
“So, give us a switch in our hands. When we enter a bar, or meet a gorgeous virtual girl, or go for a stroll in a park full of virtual people, we switch it off. At home, and through most of our screenside days, when we’re private, or with people where we are not interested in how we look, like with you seniors, we switch it on and keep it on, and let it do its work.”
“There is no problem with that idea, I would say,” said Maria. “If that would help you to feel like screenside humans, at all the times that are important for you to feel like screenside humans, then why not? It can be easily done.
“Here.” She waved her arm like a pretend magician in front of their faces, and said, “Look.”
Sagan and Gales did not have to look, because they could instantly see and sense a very light glowing frame around them, touching their bodies. “Harry Potter, no?” smiled Maria.
“And here is Potter, part two,” said Chang. He wiggled his fingers in the air above his head, and caught two TV-type remote-control-looking plastic gadgets that appeared out of thin air.
“One for each of you.” He grinned and tossed them across, where they hung suspended in the air, at arm’s length from the humans.
“How do these work?” asked Gales, clearly absolutely stunned at the spontaneity of the production.
“It’ll be the standard magical stuff, or didn’t you go to Hogwarts?” joked Christine, grinning. “A dialing system to get the right guy, an on-off button, and of course a visual display, which every magician needs, to see what he’s doing.”
“It’s the same thing that you do when you’re robotizing Mexicans,” said Chang. “Every chip has a unique ID, an address, and you expect to control the person through Wi-Fi, by connecting with the chip inside his head.
“And what we have here is exactly the same thing. You two guys have chips in your human heads. Save your ID in the address bar, and when you want to impress some virtual girls, press the off button. Some more Harry Potter. The matrix frame you see around you will i
nstantly disappear, because you will no longer be connected to your matrix. Go then, confidently, and chat up the virtual babes.
“I’m not saying that we see your matrix connection as the frame that you have now been made to see around you, when we see that you are connected to a matrix, but, whatever we see, and however different it is from the frame that has been programmed to be what you see, it will disappear.
“And then, when done with hitting on the girls, and back in a private environment, tap the on button and continue with development of consciousness,” said Christine. “Of course the frame will return around you, visible to you, so that you know you’re surely on again.
“These are interchangeable, I presume,” queried Gales. “If I put Patrick’s number into the control I am holding, he’ll be on, won’t he?
“Absolutely. There is a recognition system between microchip and virtual, and when you play around with the gadget you’ll find that the system will automatically ensure the right human head feeds the right virtual under development in here. It’s just a logical system in that way, like telephone dialing telephone, and nothing else.”
“Still, let me explain it to you, as a test that I’ve understood the procedure or process from the start; from blank,” said Gales, looking at Chang while speaking.
“In the beginning, there is nothing. The first step is the implanting of a chip into a human head. This chip has a unique identity, which means address, and that identity can be fed into the gadget in my hand. When that is done, the gadget creates a matrix in which data from that selected chip, which means from the human who has the chip in the head, begins to be collected in a matrix.
“And that means, in a strange way, that implantation of a neural chip into a human head, and the dialing up of the chip ID with this gadget will create the matrix in which the human will be formed in screenside.
“If the human in here is disconnected, and a new chip ID is dialed in, the very same gadget in my hand will begin to process a different human from out there, and to thus create a different human in here, even if it’s from scratch. Right?”
“Absolutely right, Mike,” said Chang, clapping softly. “But go on and finish it off.”
“Yes Chang. I am now saying that if the one gadget has been used to create two different humans in here, there is still no possibility of intermingling and beginning to create a hybrid person, because when you dial up a chip address, it will automatically have to connect with the right digital human, whether newly started, part finished, or nearly fully completed in here.”
Chang nodded encouragingly, and Gales continued.
“And thus, if Patrick and I, between us, lose one of these gadgets, we can still share the other one.”
“Absolutely right, again,” said Chang. “Except that we’ll find the lost gadget for you.”
“Does that finish off all the issues you have?” asked Margaret.
“It actually does,” said Sagan. “But there is one more, though it is more of a question rather than any requirement. Ask them, Michael.”
“Yes, it’s to do with human management. Both of us feel pretty complete in here, at least to the point where we should be able to handle human management. Patrick and I were talking about it, and the question came up about sleeping time. You people exit humans as you wish, and you have also got the ability of reducing involvement with them when you think they are safe, because you can intervene with full involvement instantaneously, as required. We know we will never have that ability, and we don’t think that it is something to ask for. Dreaming. But we do want to know about how to enter and exit humans on our own. Why?”
“I’ll tell you why,” said Sagan, joining in to support Michael. “We’ll do our duty hours with assigned human patients, and we’ll be diligent in our work, especially as we’ll be monitored closely by unit control groups, and maybe by some sort of guardian programs that you might make up for the purpose. However, we also do not want, one hundred percent of our time, to be bonded inside the human we are helping; be stuck; could be Dominic-level madman. We should be given the option of getting out of them when they are sleeping, so that we get some off time to live our lives here. Will that be possible? And is it something to do with this gadget too?”
“That is something different,” answered Chang. “You will only be allowed to touch humans when you are fully competent in here. For human management, you will operate like we do. Every chip-implanted human sends out a signal and is able to thus be captured by a virtual.
“It is exactly the same thing you’ve been trying to do with robotized Mexicans, except that you have been trying to use computers to capture the chips in their heads.
“Now you, in your digital form, have become the computer. It only needs that you be complete in here, follow? You can take over chip-implanted unoccupied human heads when you’re independent of matrix.”
“An occupied head cannot be forcibly taken over. It’s something we discovered when Esme’s friends first started doing motor duties with her mother, mum Sophie-Marie. The one inside must move out willingly.”
“You will operate under all the restrictions that we ourselves are subject to,” said Christine. “It will have to be a human assigned to you by the control people.”
“There will be one major difference between you and us,” said Maria. “We can control patients globally, no matter where we ourselves are located. You can have no such ability, and will have to travel, in screenside, to the vicinity of the patient you handle.
“Another major difference is that we can keep control through signals from multiple sources, which you will never be able to do. If your patient walks out of the house and gets into a car or bus, you will lose control.
“The only way out of this limitation, will be to ensure that your patient carries a well-connected smart mobile phone at all times, through which connection you should be able to exercise uninterrupted control.”
“Well spotted, Maria,” said Margaret. “I am going to order the creation of a guardian program that can immediately spot potential loss of control, and alert control groups to intervene instantly, so that no patient is physically endangered at any time.”
It became quiet thereafter for a minute, and when it looked like Sagan and Gales were not thinking up new questions, Margaret asked. “Done?”
“Yes, done,” said Gales. “At the moment, we’ve satisfactorily covered the issues that were bothering us.”
“Wait for us think up some new things to demand of you,” said Sagan, winding up the session in laughter.
22
Martine’s improvement was dramatic, and in a little over two months after she had had the neural implant inserted, and acquired Twixie as her caretaker, she was behaving exactly as a girl her age should be behaving.
Like every virtual, Twixie, although a child, was able to keep tabs on her dependent human throughout the day, and intervened whenever it was necessary. However, as the days passed, Martine became increasingly more capable at managing herself, and incidents of autistic behavior became absolutely infrequent, to the point of almost none at all.
“Twixie, please leave Martine, so Esmeralda can enter for medical evaluation,” ordered Margaret. “You are to concentrate on screenside schoolwork today.”
Twixie obediently exited Martine immediately, but did anxiously say, “Miss Margaret, this evening she has an invitation to a dance party with her school classmates, in a park.”
“Don’t worry, Twixie. Esmeralda will let you back in for the dancing. She is moving in immediately. You’ll be able to return to helping Martine, full time, when Esme is done.”
Esmeralda was done in about half a day of testing, and handed Martine back to Twixie, long before the dance party. “She’s okay, well almost. I switched her from Epsilon, and took the amnesia loop feed through other areas. She’s okay. Will need help for a while longer, but it can be entirely through the implant point. She clearly does not need the
amnesia loop, because there is no insanity to loop out.
“Twixie can continue helping, and Martine can start becoming her lovely self, especially with the newfound ability of learning, and retaining what she is learning in school, and maybe in life.”
“I’ll tell Priya and Rosa,” said Margaret. “Sagan and Gales are both in Paris, and whichever qualified virtual wants to do this five-minute operation, can take it on. Are you exiting immediately? Okay then, Twixie, you’re back in charge of Martine.”
Two days later, Martine was on the operating table in the American Hospital, from where Sagan clearly preferred to operate, and in which he had practically permanently booked an operating theatre, using money from Grietzmann’s Arabian Fund. They had also reserved a handful of rooms on the floor below the theatre.
Twixie was nervous, so Esmeralda, as Sabine, also physically attended the loop removal operation. “It’s nothing,” said Rosa, while making the incision. “We do not recommend that you ever shut this child’s motor down, if you know how to do that, but Esmeralda will take her on now, through the first few hours, to ascertain whether she is actually able to operate without the loop.”
Sagan and Gales were both in the theatre, and of course, they were both also in RV in screenside, sitting in a private room in The Paris HC, where Esmeralda and Twixie were now with them.
“Why so glum, guys?” asked Esmeralda. “Everything going well, or isn’t it?”
The two gloomy men nodded yes, but Michael was clearly forced to hold back a sob.
“What’s wrong? Tell me,” urged Esmeralda.
Twixie, with a finger in practically every pie in screenside, answered. “Look Miss Esmeralda – the problem.” She opened a window of virtuality, and showed two very glum virtual females, sitting and holding hands on the steps of the Mississippi High school building.
“Those two are Claudette and Daphne,” she said. “They are teachers at the school I go to, Mississippi High, and they are both very popular teachers, specializing in Age-Group Advancement Studies. They take us through to adulting. I think they are inventing programs, to create seamless growing up, because programs do not already exist.”
