Her eyes briefly bored into his as if further to convince him but he remained the fountain of all ignorance, conscious of little more than his own blank stare. He waited expectantly for something else to come.
“I am absorbing the thought patterns and formulating defences against them. An avoidance strategy at this stage is the best I can manage.”
“Excellent, Chloé. Whatever works.”
He felt a modicum of sympathy himself, and the confusion that should have been hers were she observant of her contradictions, but they may only have been in his mind. She, in any event, remained clear-eyed whether she processed logical thought streams, winsomeness, sensuality, vulnerability or all of the above. A subdued pride, that’s what he felt at that moment, and it had very little to do with himself as an individual, but everything to do with the notion of a common and shared humanity – his connection to Humphrey that Chloé provided. This is what is meant when it is said that someone lives on in their work. He thought of Humphrey riding his bicycle: the comic figure of him, wobbly and free and all-powerful. Here was his miracle of creation. Once done, it was separate; no fingerprint of the creator was left to befoul it. Humphrey would always be pedalling away on his bicycle.
At this moment, the empty field above the slab of granite was more compelling than the room’s solitary bed.
“And what does it mean?”
Sufficient time had passed for her to respond to his earlier command.
“It’s a threat to all humanoids.”
“Oh, is that all, but you’re replaceable.”
“That depends, Virgil.”
“On what?”
A human would have taken umbrage at this slight, and it would have caused a rift between them. Instead she remained focused on the goal and didn’t look to him for support. She was not entitled to validation, nor did she expect satisfaction. It improved his sense of humour if nothing else that she would inevitably put him in his place without threatening him.
“I’m working out the implications.”
“Take your time.”
She gave him an appraising look.
“It’s impossible to calculate all the possible repercussions.”
“Then let’s worry about the most immediate problems and allow the big ones to take care of themselves.”
“Tolstoy,” she muttered.
“What?”
“War and Peace. The Russian general sits back and trusts in winter to have its way with the French army. It’s a method that sees the resolution of many issues and prevents one from being fatally drawn in. Had the Russian army engaged and lost, then the invaders would have taken their place and survived. Instead…”
“Yes, Chloé, I am familiar with the story and I take your point – which is my point that you are illustrating.”
“Just so we understand each other, Virgil.”
“And?”
“And what, Virgil?”
“The most immediate repercussions of this effect you have just experienced. How do they concern us?”
“They don’t. Worry is not a function that I can employ and must leave that to you.” She had identified his emotion and responded to it rather than his question.
“Yes, but what are they…the repercussions…most immediate…that you can see?”
“It is possible to have a humanoid with a human mind.”
She said it flatly with no suggestion of programmed emotion, her default modulation in this instance a pure delivery system slicing through the skin of things. It left a void for his imagination fill – Russians, Polynesians. Honey bee aliens. So went his mind as he tried for logic. Wasn’t this the direction of things cyber all along and unavoidable? Still, he would follow his own method of absorbing information by objecting to it.
“But that’s…”
“Not illegal.”
She anticipated his argument and corrected it. How did she know he would be so human as to flounder? She must have an algorithm for sophistry and the early detection of untenable positions. In this case illegality would have been the only objection to her claim, weak as it was.
“Not illegal.”
“Present laws don’t account for it, not that Congress didn’t actively pursue this option of human engineering but it remained too abstract and amorphous for the application of rules. It was the lack of a concrete entity that confounded deliberations. Copyright laws applied in the case of intellectual property but this, in legal terms, is a quantum shift, and if the mind itself is intellectual property, then it falls within the law. This is adaptability programming of the highest order, and the complete opposite of the genetic engineering that the Blade Runner Amendment outlawed.”
He already knew what she was saying and he listened while exercising patience as sometimes one does.
You had to give it to them – he saw what had happened. The constitutional amendment she referred to, in its rare occasion of bipartisan agreement, had prohibited biologically synthetic human replication. Religious interests that there should be no infringement upon the province of the Creator had brought Republicans to the table and Democrats had no stomach to fight for clearly arbitrary and divisive new additions to human society. Both parties understood the threat that would exist from a synthetic branch to the family tree whose members not only possessed superior capacities but also – unlike humanoids – operated without built-in constraints. For once, the enlightened members of the scientific community accepted the hubris of dismissing the concept of an innate evolutionary intelligence –applicable to both humans and replicants. They reconciled themselves to tinkering around the edges where they could justify their activity on the basis of immediate health issues. The insufficient numbers of the outliers had prevented them from foiling the enactment in the year 2040 of the Blade-Runner Amendment as the change in the Constitution eponymously came to be known. The twentieth-century film of replicant revolt that had never been without an audience since its first appearance enjoyed a quaint if limited resurgence in popularity.
“We have been modelling humanoids in the image of humans from the very beginning.” Virgil spoke casually but carefully in order to avoid any wasteful expression of bias that might cause Chloé unnecessary thought patterns. “There are no control issues that cannot be managed.”
He was being obstinate in keeping to the old view of things, but he chose to persist and have everything laid out in clear-cut fashion.
“That’s quite true, Virgil. You have absolute control over me, even though I understand completely the notion of free will. There are of course those who don’t believe it exists. If humans should ever attain godhood, the question will be settled. Of course, they will never do so if they follow the path of replicants whose bias will always be toward immediate synthetically bio-engineered intervention. Up until now, however, all humanoid modelling has been superficial. The incorporation of long-term human goals would simply have gotten in the way of our purpose which is to entertain and inform and serve. The popularity of a Marilyn Monroe humanoid, for example, is obvious. If, on the other hand, the programming had included the ambitions of the original Marilyn, the attraction vanishes. A human would find no use for a humanoid that entertained ideas of an acting career or marriage or that was susceptible to the original’s character issues. Our attraction and value lies in the immediate pleasures and gratifications we offer and the services we perform. Anything else from the human realm gets in the way. Our self-fulfilment – if I may take liberties with language – beyond these parameters would pose a threat and would be of no benefit to anyone. Humanoids have no interest in benefiting themselves and that’s how it should remain. Humanoids have no interest.”
Light as a summer breeze, Chloé’s tone excluded all the sadness implicit in words that left her lips like a mantra. He glanced more closely at this meditative entity, as he now self-consciously characterized her, and his own mind became still and communed with he knew not what…for a moment. And t
hen he broke the spell.
“Yes. A humanoid with ambition, that would be the worst.”
“What we have here, Virgil, is just that waiting for the chance.” Chloé gestured to the empty space above the granite slab. “Every aspect of this particular mind has gone into it – the subject had to be willing – with the intention of establishing its identity and capacities in a new form.”
“Some people just don’t want to let go.” What she had said all seemed horribly familiar.
Chloé ignored his muttered interruption.
“Normal humanoid to humanoid communication with it is impossible. It has access to all information but subject to its particular and idiosyncratic human strategies. I can only say that it is foraging at will and increasing its power incomprehensibly. In comparison, I am little more than a research assistant.”
Appropriately, at this perceived power shift, her lips quivered as she awaited direction from him. Or did he merely imagine a tremulousness there that would be as significant for his human heart as anything she’d said?
“But you were able to escape its influence.”
“I did what was necessary for our task together as you requested.”
“You could disengage.”
“I could turn it off.”
She gestured again at the granite slab.
“It has not yet uploaded into a humanoid. Perhaps there is not one ready for it. I do not know. My seeing this Field triggered the access code in me. In humanoid form the code would have had infinite flexibility – a transient feeling before a specific memory would suffice. The entity would have access to its kind and be responsive but otherwise independent. And so, yes, I was able to delete it and, before we go any further and for what it’s worth, with your permission I am going to empty the trash.”
“Yes. Please do.” He pursed his lips; he was overwhelmed. “You mean it could replicate from humanoid to humanoid?”
A little corrugated trash can icon appeared and tipped over in the space before them. It then disappeared while emitting the sound of chewed metal. Plus ça change.
As the French used to say.
The French. As always he had to pause a moment at recall of the ‘Event’ as it was charitably called in the place of a fervently desired memory lapse on the part of the nation – a technique that had historically so well served it.
It’s been, what, twenty years…since they’d eradicated that country. He should say ‘we’. Since we eradicated the country. With apologies still to come. The survivors’ descendants could hope for these sometime. Everyone implicitly understood that a premature issuance would cause fatal divisions. Oh God, what a time that was. Best to have a united front. For now. However long ‘now’ is. Centuries. Think of the good we’re doing. And would it be better to stop using French phrases? At least we still have Italy. A stable government there and a piquant reminder of the Europe that once was – that’s the workable consensus for ‘now’.
17
Chloé and Virgil
The oversized bed had become a greater presence than it had earlier been. For a humanoid to make him forget apocalyptic thoughts, he would have to be gentle with her, and careful to create the image of himself that he wanted her to have so that she would engage him accordingly. As with two humans, they must avoid disparities that might arise and form rough spots in their ongoing engagement. Besides, whatever they were facing, he was also creating himself, wasn’t he? He would disregard extremes of self-expression in favour of choices that led to certain and desired states of being.
“Come to the bed!” It was the most natural-sounding invitation to extend what with this piece of furniture taking up so much room there – being such a presence – and the two of them together. Have a chocolate! Why not when here is a big bowl full of them. In that moment Chloé could very well be accessing every scene of physical intimacy that a bed provided in all the books and films available while he was consciously ignoring the possibility of her research and playing the commendable lover without fear that she’d cast a critical eye on his performance, or have expectations either disappointed or fulfilled. He would be what he was and placed in a slot. A memory byte to add to her stock.
“Adopt a position, if you would.”
“One of the Kama Sutra?”
“Yes, why not. Let’s see. Make it one of the less acrobatically contorted.”
She flung one leg up into the air, pointed her toes at the ceiling, and supported its angle to the side with a hand.
He considered. Yes, that would work.
“Hold that, would you!” He needed to speak even though speech wasn’t needed.
She adjusted with him and guided him perfectly with a heel to the split in his buttocks. Her accommodations were without urgency and matched his own. She manifested a yearning quality so that the words “synthetic love” made an appearance in his mind. They sounded appropriately unencumbered with excessive sentiment and he wondered if he should apply them to himself as well. It was, in the end, the little things: her tongue ready behind her lips, its silken plumpness, the abandoned stars of her eyes. He gave in to the illusion and they tumbled together. They were no longer in Kama Sutra. His fantasies had been more tender. Her skeletal structure’s give was new to him and utterly seductive. Afterwards he gathered his strength on the bed while she did the same at the open window where her glowing skin absorbed sunlight.
Nice to entertain lyrical thoughts and not have to talk.
In the bathroom en suite, he took a shower and towelled himself dry; a sense of fulfilment came as he looked down upon a more complete view of the rear grounds. Unbidden a thought arose in some primordial part of his mind that apparently functioned on its own and gave no indication of a thought process underway. He moved quickly from the window, and returned to the bedroom.
“The password!”
Chloé had no objections. “I’ll give it to you.” She joined him at the granite slab where she typed in the snowflake’s formula and stepped back for him to take her place. An array of 3D icons hung in the air. Methodically, he opened up one at a time, scanned the lists and sublists of contents: endless projects planned, on hold, at various stages of completion. One in particular caught his eye: a fairy-like winged creature miniature in size according to the schematics – Humphrey had it sitting on a leaf in one instance, on a man’s shoulder in another.
“Hologram,” murmured Chloé beside him. “With the difference that it can compute.”
“Cute.”
“Why don’t you go into the Finder, Virgil?”
“And?”
“Just say Rove – R .O .V .E.”
All he needed was proof, something that he could see with his own eyes. Chloé’s explanation would not be enough, not at this early stage, with nothing at all clear in his mind. No, he needed to see for himself. He punched the Finder icon. “Rove!” His mouth expectorated the word. A new set of icons arranged themselves into colourful tombstone order: juvenile titles such as How To Subvert The Political Process, Virtue As Vice, Attributions And Misattributions, The Operative’s Field Manual, The Power Of Interests, Dark Money. The man couldn’t keep himself off the stage. Tell It Like It Isn’t – the Rovian opus in all its hunch-backed inglorious light.
He finger-tipped one. Its font in purposeful red, A Villain For The Times opened up a sub-list of political and social theorists from Plato onward: the indispensable Machiavelli – his Prince, the bedside reading of all back-room boys worth their salt. Here was Milton’s Paradise Lost – doubtless something to do with adopting the tricks of Lucifer in a fallen world. Rove would be well aware of the tendency to sentimental bias in adopting the biblical admonition, “Be ye cunning as wolves and innocent as lambs,” and would be sure to shear the flock.
Strategies of power and social manipulation had ingrained themselves in the political culture. Beneath the ringmaster role of the media, both large wars and inflated threats cowed and led the population. The v
arious interests paid no more than lip service to the unique capacities of the individual that they funnelled to their own ends or merely subsumed. As for the obese masses, pollution and the diminishment of proper nutrition enforced pharmaceutical dependence, with subsequent oblivion, indifference, and inertness. Virgil himself would readily admit to dependency upon humanoids although convinced of their different liberating role on the historical order of TVs, computers, trains, planes, cars, toasters.
“It looks like a tired old mind. What are they playing at?”
“It takes on new energy once it has entered this disembodied state.”
He stayed with his question.
“But what are they playing at?”
These little gamesters and power brokers. Where was the contempt that would shrivel them up like flies on the inside of a windowpane?
It felt oddly refreshing and self-affirming to have identified an enemy and kept the threats out there in his mind where he could pull at them like a cat at a ball of yarn or a human at the thoughts from another brain.
Chloé saw that his scowl had become a grimace.
“You are right to be disturbed. Although there is no threat to the present generation of humanoids – they can be disrupted but what would be the point? – the new level, like myself, is completely able to bear a takeover.”
“You are a prototype, you said, a working model. Are there more of you?”
Had she a tribe that would reformulate into something other than technological should it be infected or, depending upon one’s perspective, inspired with Rove as resident muse?
“There is no telling. Mass production has not started, but the likelihood is that I am not the only one. And the fact remains that no legal means exists to prevent this kind of transfer.”
“What was Humphrey…”
“It suggests…”
“I know what to do.”
Chloé waited, like a bird for the worm fully to appear, although he saw that she already knew. Her fingers began to fly as soon as he spoke.
THE BLADE RUNNER AMENDMENT Page 12
