Limos Lives

by R E Kearney

  Robert reels. Aethon’s tsunami of affection overwhelms him. A thousand invisible, baby kisses cascade upon him. Slowly, Aethon tires, loses interest, slides off Rita’s lap and crawls away. Her tidal wave of affection subsides, releasing Robert’s mind. He considers telling Rita about the drone attack, but decides to keep it to himself rather than upset her.

  “What’s the problem, Robert?” Rita leans forward, scrutinizing his volumetric image in Venus.

  Robert shakes his head returning himself to the present. He blinks his eyes restoring himself. “Oh, I’m a little dizzy. I just got knocked out by an overwhelming load of love from Aethon, and she didn’t say one word. She simply released it. Let it flow. Brought to life a conversation I remember reading in Winnie the Pooh where Piglet asks Pooh, ‘How do you spell love?’ ‘You don’t spell it, you feel it’, is Pooh’s very wise answer, because I certainly felt it.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. She’s been searching for you. Missed you since the moment you left.” Rita smiles affectionately and whispers, “Me too.”

  Robert grins and throws Rita a ceremonial kiss. It is more of an acknowledgement of her than a symbol of strong affection for her. After all these many months together, he is still developing his feelings for her. Actually, in truth, he remains perplexed about his feelings for his fellow human beings, generally.

  Since being transformed into a transhuman, tied directly to an AGI computer through a biochip and neural network, his turmoil regarding his human relationships is constantly increasing. Not fully human, not completely digital, Robert is stumbling forward into an unknown. His biochip, neural-network, AGI connection assists his work, but is hurting his head. Since his transhuman conversion, rarely does he consider himself to be only himself.

  Having experienced these periods of silent detachment from Robert increasingly often, Rita decides to continue her conversation with or without his attention. “They conducted those Empathy Spectrum measurements, you invented, on Aethon, the Peters and the Petras, today.”

  Rita silently awaits Robert’s reaction. She watches his eyes. He is awake and aware, but his attention is neither here nor there. Rita loudly clears her throat.

  Robert blinks and returns to the present. “So, what did their measurements show? Are any of them being expelled for possessing too little gray brain matter in their amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex? Certainly, don’t want any future psychopaths among my chip children.”

  Rita shakes her head and grins. “No, there are no shrunken, psychopathic amygdalas in your thirteen. In fact, all of them have larger than normal, right amygdalas. So we should expect all of them to possess a good dose of empathy, as well as being altruistic. But there was one…”

  Robert’s eyes widen with concern. “But there was one…?”

  “Yes, there was one…” Rita teases by attempting to appear troubled. “…there was one child with a right amygdala eight percent larger than normal. Who do you imagine could possibly be that loving?”

  “I don’t have to guess.” Robert puffs up with pride. “Only Aethon matches that description. I’m still attempting to recover from her affection overload.”

  Rita shakes her index finger in the air. “Hey, don’t forget me. You’re still my corazón de melón…my sweetie pie. Don’t plan to make Aethon the only female love of your life.”

  Robert grins. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll allow that to happen. But, don’t expect too much from me. Remember, my right amygdala measured only a half percent larger than normal size. Aethon inherited her extra empathy from you and your extra five percent.”

  “Excuses. Excuses.” Rita waves her hand dismissing Robert’s alibis. “By the way, they discovered two more five percent negatives during their latest round of measurements. Both Mid-North Americans. That’s five Ejects in the MNA, since SPEA implemented your amygdala measurement program two years ago.”

  Robert frowns. “Although, I perfected and implemented the Amygdala Measurement Program, I’m still not convinced that ejecting individuals with no empathy and high psychopathic traits into the general public is good for anybody. Especially, since SPEA selects only the most skilled and intelligent for its projects. Hostile people with brilliant, but bad brains…recipe for disaster.”

  “Truly, I feel sorry for them. But, I also fear them and I don’t want them near me or Aethon or you or anybody else. I read your research. A shrunken amygdala is an irreversible, uncorrectable biological disorder which creates dangerous psychological and social problems.” Rita nods toward Robert. “So what would you do with them? Until they actually exhibit psychopathic behaviors, you can’t imprison them. But, they will always be a serious threat to the rest of society, so in my opinion, it is best to identify them and then isolate them outside of society…at least outside of my society.”

  Robert shrugs. “Inside or outside of society, either way, they’re still a danger. That’s why, I recommended transcranial direct-current stimulation to reduce the violent tendencies of people we locate with shrunken amygdalas. The procedure has proven useful in treating some patients and criminals who suffer from mental illness and display aggressive, antisocial behavior, but SPEA leadership refused.”

  “Zap their brains. Now I like that. Can I do it?” Rita sneers.

  “Wow, harsh words for someone with a five percent larger than normal empathy center.” Robert teases her, in order to evade a dispute. “Now, let’s consider something else…my work here, for example.”

  Over the months, he has learned that Rita possesses many strong opinions, which she enjoys debating. She relishes philosophical arguments. He often wonders if she would be happier returning to making incendiary, inspirational speeches as a Puerto Rican freedom fighter. To him, she appears less than excited about being a working mother in quiet, orderly, seasteaded, and therefore isolated, Venus. Perhaps, his request for some slightly less than legal work will excite her.

  Disappointment flashes across Rita’s face then disappears, as Robert changes their conversation subject. “How are your hacking skills these days? Are you still capable of cracking into a personal account or two or three?”

  Just as Robert anticipated, his offer of a slightly illegal challenge energizes Rita. Her face brightens into a smirk. “I cannot believe that you dare doubt me. If they’re your typical careless humans then of course I can hack them. So, who are they and what do you want to know?”

  Robert could easily do this hacking and research himself, but the eagerness in Rita’s face and in her voice tells him that she desperately needs this assignment. “I suspect that these Ile-de-France plant poisonings are the work of an Agromafia. A conspiracy possibly involving people working at every AAU location, both in Paris and possibly worldwide. So, I need you to find out who is talking to whom and what they are saying. Start with Allie Hooya at the Association’s banana farm on Les Champs-Élysées. Consider everybody guilty. Nobody is innocent. Can you handle that?”

  Rita’s enthusiasm leaps the nine thousand miles separating them. Immediately, she starts sliding out of his sight. Robert blinks and zip, she is gone. Her normal affectionate goodbye disappears with her.

  Smugly, Robert congratulates himself on accomplishing both of his missions without doing a thing. “Oh, I am such a crafty Canadian.”

  PATERNITY PAINS

  Brain-jarring buzzing shatters sleep and silence. Jolting upright, eyes blind in the glaring light, Robert is lost. Droning, muttering, babbling and blubbering, his free-space volumetric display platform is burning bright.

  “You are neglecting your duties!” Pion’s accusation drills deep into Robert’s neocortex. As soon as he hears Pion’s voice, he realizes there is a problem. His high-functioning, autistic, SPEA associate wastes no words. She speaks only when she has something important to say.

  Half-awake he drags himself out of his slumber sling and into his photophoretic-trap recorder. When he finally focuses, Robert confronts Pion’s austere eyes searing him
through her emotion-recognition, google glasses. To escape her 3D-volumetric, stabbing stare, he lowers his eyes and nods his head. He is simultaneously avoiding Pion’s accusations while struggling to suppress the high-pitched ringing raging through his brain.

  Slowly, he separates the clashing, crashing, cacophonous clamor into the random thoughts of his twelve chip children. Some of the children are thinking to him. Others are communicating with their sisters and brothers. A few are simply minding their own mental meanderings. Regardless of what they are thinking or why they are thinking, the neural net feeds it all into Robert. His head is a hive alive with a thousand buzzing bees.

  “These are your germ-line engineered offspring, Robert. You cannot ignore them. They are you and you are them. Inseparable…” Pion is no longer maintaining eye contact with Robert. As is more natural for her, she is looking away – studying her hands, as she speaks.

  Pion interlaces her fingers and then separates them, interlaces them again and separates them again. She is not stimming, but it is obvious to Robert that she is troubled. “…although, you believe distance…traveling to Paris…hiding on a riverboat…disconnects you from them. You forget that you are all of one mind…present and future.”

  Robert refuses to concede to Pion’s rebuke. “I’ve forgotten nothing. They are always in my mind. I experience each and every one…all of their experiences. Unending. Unrelenting. They engulf all the pieces of my mind, so I have no peace of mind.”

  Pion retreats. With her head bent down, she looks first to her right and then to her left. She begins rocking back and forth, and repetitively mumbling.

  Robert regrets his harsh response to his friend. Silent, he provides her some time to recover. He waits and listens. He strains to understand her recurring muttering, but fails.

  After several minutes, Pion ceases rocking. Still looking down, she tilts her head to her right. Finally, without speaking to him, she tells Robert her thoughts. “Ambient intimacy through your neural network provides access and connections between you and them at any chosen moment. You may consider that sufficient. It is not.”

  Lifting her eyes to the side, she concludes. “You know you do create who you are. My mother taught me that. So, you know you do create who they are.”

  “Yes, and child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim said that raising children is a creative endeavor, an art rather than a science.” Robert regrets his retort as soon as he delivers it. Perplexed, Pion’s 3D-volumetric face falls blank.

  Although he and Pion have worked together for years, she still often misinterprets him. Thanks to the emotion-recognition google glasses, Robert provided her, she capably reads and reacts to most major human emotions. But effectively comprehending the nuances of other forms of human communication continues to elude her. Be succinct, be direct or be gone, Pion neither understands, nor has tolerance for anything else.

  Robert recognizes that his quip has disrupted Pion’s linear logical line of thought, so he attempts to restart her. “Please excuse my interruption, Pion. Continue. Explain your concerns regarding my interactions with my offspring.”

  “This disorganization should not continue.” Without raising her head, Pion motions toward the twelve toddlers stumbling, rolling, fumbling, drooling, babbling, jabbering, laughing, hooting, playing, giggling, whining and crying behind her. Each in their own way separately satisfying themselves.

  After watching his genome recipients experiencing childish things in childish ways, Robert remains confused. “I know you expect order and discipline in all things, Pion, but you must remember they are still just children…toddlers…little more than babies.”

  “Unacceptable. You are confabulating.” Pion scolds. “You cannot employ weak excuses in an attempt to explain away your responsibilities.”

  Robert is puzzled. Why is Pion in control of the children? Based upon his many years of experience working with her, he definitely does not envision her as the loving, mothering type of individual. She thinks logically, narrowly and obsessively. As a benefit of her autism, Pion is a cyber savant. The logical, programmable, algorithm driven cyber world matches her. It is not that she lacks emotions, she just disdains them. Being maternal is not her normal nature.

  Robert is aware that he possesses a fondness for Pion she is incapable of returning. With a grin, he remembers her when she flourished and was happiest. Then, she lived alone, operating an automated, SPEA coffee plantation in Ethiopia. On the plantation, she thrived adhering to an established schedule and according to clear and concise directions. Humanoid robots tended to her physical needs. Her emotional needs were met by a humanoid replicant of her deceased mother. She prospered in her logical, human-free, emotion-free, sterile biosphere in Ethiopia.

  On the other hand, he has also observed her experiencing difficulty and anxiety dealing with daily problems and unexpected events. She cannot cope with chaos. It was a series of unanticipated incidents, which drove Pion into months of silence, alienation and detachment. Less than three years ago, Robert witnessed a nearly comatose Pion rocking and staring at a blank white wall in a soundproof room on Venus. She only survived by separating herself from the world.

  Destruction of Pion’s tranquility and her mental stability commenced when she saved the precocious Ethiopian girl, Tena, from a tribe of terrorists by sheltering her inside her plantation asylum. Once established in the SPEA plantation, neurotypical, demonstrative Tena refused to acquiesce to Pion’s rigorous rules. Conflict and disagreements arose and festered, forcing Pion into a state of perpetual agitated distress. Eventually, she and Tena developed an uneasy, but workable relationship. More accurately, with the humanoid robots acting as buffers, they cohabited and coexisted.

  But Pion’s world completely disintegrated when Mugavus Komfort, Robert and the assassin Mack Evoil invaded her plantation and propelled her into the middle of a war. In one afternoon, they obliterated her sanctuary, her security and her sanity. But, before she lost her fragile grip on stability, Pion prevented the conflict surrounding her from exploding into world war three. In Robert’s opinion, she saved society with her cyber skills

  Although it occurred years ago, Robert has not yet forgiven himself for his role in Pion’s mental collapse in Ethiopia. Then less than two years later, he fears he again degraded her condition when he compelled her into assisting him in battling the Puerto Rican Aethon plague. She stunned him when she volunteered to be one of the twelve SPEA surrogate wombs accepting Shengwu’s embryos. Now, he considers her to still be recovering and too fragile, not yet ready, for the challenge of twelve children. But then, even when she was at her best, Robert never imagined Pion being capable of managing just one child.

  “When did you become head mistress of this brood, Pion?” Robert gently questions her, as he motions toward the children surrounding her.

  “I…am…assigned.” Pion bites off each word, which indicates to Robert that she is not thrilled by her assignment. “Dame Gutefrau informed me their brain scans revealed that they are special children who require special care, direction and training.”

  “Well, she’s our boss and she knows what is best, so you must follow her instructions.” Robert offers her some verbal encouragement. “She wouldn’t have picked you, if she didn’t believe in you. Consider her assignment a compliment.”

  Pion is not listening to him. She is traveling within her own contemplations. She continues speaking without acknowledging him. “She also told me that she knows my autism will help me be a good mother to these special children. She informed me that since autistic people get obsessions, I shall employ my autistic nature. She instructed me that my obsession should become making sure I’m doing everything I can to give these special children everything they need. She directed me to love them, fight for them, and get them to adulthood healthy and happy. I understand how I can ensure they attain adulthood. I do not understand how I am expected to love them and fight for them.”

  “Well, Dame is a wise w
oman, Pion. I’m certain that you will do an excellent job.” Robert attempts to blind her with compliments, so he can slip out of the photophoretic-trap recorder and back to sleep.

  “Dame instructed me to inform you that you are to be my partner and constant assistant.” Pion steals a sidelong glance at Robert. ”Dame informed me that she expects you to provide the children with what I cannot.”

  Robert’s attempt to escape ends immediately. “Uh…um…and just what is that? What can I provide that you can’t?”

  “Through my research, I learned that children need cuddles and affection, and, as you know, I do not like touching. Studies show that children love squeezes and hugs. Something, I cannot comfortably give them. I find hugging another human almost intolerable. My desire is to live in a parallel non-touching world to everyone else.” Pion vigorously waves away Petra-five who is toddling toward her. Petra-five totters three more steps and then collapses backward onto her bottom. She giggles, rolls-over and crawls away.

  Robert quietly chuckles to himself at Petra-five’s antics. He follows her past Pion and watches as she mingles among her other eleven siblings. Petra-five stops and twists into a sitting position in front of Peter-three. They do not touch. They sit and look at each other. Silent.

  One after another the ten other children arrive and assume sitting positions. Never touching, the toddlers form a circle. Robert notices that they have all closed their eyes. Curious, he drops his protective, brain-blocking focus on Pion. Like a thousand flies, the twelve’s thoughts flood into his head. They are communicating with each other without speaking – sharing soundlessly. AGI and brain-computer-interface biochip assisted telepathy is invisibly linking them.

  For a few moments, Robert monitors them undetected. Like a prying spy, he is surveilling them. What is entwining their collective minds? Food? Sleep? Pion? Pion!

  “Robert! Robert, are you listening to me?” Pion is jamming the children’s communications by demanding Robert’s attention. She is ignoring the circled children, as she charges ahead describing his newest duties. “Dame directed that you are to make sure these children receive all the physical affection they need. She says that it is your obligation as their genome donor.”