Year's Best SF 17

by David G. Hartwell

  (But Paul wouldn’t be talking about it if she were; he knows that much about Paul by now.)

  “No,” says Paul, a sad smile crossing his face. “I tried a couple of our early patches, before we were working on the full. I couldn’t believe how well they took.”

  Of course they did, thinks Mason, they’re mine, but he keeps his mouth shut.

  Paul looks as close to wonderment as guys like him can get. “When we announce Vestige, it’s going to change the world. You know that, right?”

  He knows. It’s one of the reasons he can’t sleep.

  “What happens to Nadia, then?” he asks.

  (That’s the other reason he can’t sleep.)

  “I don’t know,” Paul says, shaking his head. “She knows what she is—I mean, she knows she’s A.I.—she understands what might happen. I told her that from the very beginning. At first I thought we could use her as a tester. I had no idea how much I would—” He falters as his feelings get the better of him.

  “Not human, but the nearest thing?” Mason says, and it comes out vicious.

  Paul has the decency to flinch, but it doesn’t last.

  “She knows I care about her,” he goes on. “I’m planning for better things. Hopefully Mori will be so impressed by the product that they’ll let me—that they’ll be all right with Nadia.”

  He means, That they’ll let me keep her.

  “What if they want her as the prototype?”

  “I haven’t lied to her,” Paul says. “Not ever. She knows she might have to get the upgrade to preserve herself, that she might end up belonging to the company. She accepts it. I thought I had, too, but I didn’t think she’d be so—I mean, I didn’t think I would come to—in the beginning, she really was no one.”

  Mason remembers the first time Nadia ever looked at him; he knows it isn’t true.

  They sit quietly for a long time, Paul looking wracked as to how he fell in love with something he made, like someone who never thought to look up Galatea.

  She’s waiting in the library, and it surprises him before he admits that of course he’d look for her here; he had a map.

  He doesn’t make any noise, and she doesn’t look up from her console, but after a second she says, “Some of these have never even been accessed.” A castigation.

  He says, “These are just reference books.” He doesn’t say, I don’t need them. He needs to try not being an asshole sometimes.

  She glances up, then. (He looks for code behind her eyes, feels worse than Paul.)

  “I love books,” she says. “At first I didn’t, but now I understand them better. Now I love them.”

  (She means, Are you going to give me away?)

  He wonders if this is just her, or if this is his algorithm working, and something new is trying to get out.

  “I have a library at home,” he says. (He means, No.)

  She blinks, relaxes. “What do you read?”

  “Pulp, mostly,” he says, thinks about his collection of detective novels, wonders if she thinks that’s poor taste.

  She says, “They’re all pulp.”

  It’s a sly joke (he doesn’t think it’s anything of his), and she has such a smile he gets distracted, and when he pulls himself together she’s leaving.

  “I’ll walk you somewhere,” he says. “Paul and I won’t be done for a while.”

  Clearly Paul told her not to trust him before he went in to spill his guts, but after a second she says, “Tell me more about your books,” and he falls into step beside her.

  He tells her about the library that used to be the guest bedroom before he realized he didn’t have guests and there was no point in it. He explains why there are no windows and special light bulbs and a fancy dehumidifier to make sure mold doesn’t get into the books.

  (It’s also lined in lead, which keeps Mori from getting a look at his computer. Some things are private.)

  Her expression keeps changing, so subtle he’d swear she was human if he didn’t know better.

  She talks about the library at Alexandria, an odd combination of a machine programmed to access information and someone with enough imagination she might as well have been there.

  (Maybe this is immortality, as far as it goes.)

  She mentions the Dewey Decimal system, and he says, “That’s how I shelve mine.”

  “That explains your code,” she says. When he raises his eyebrows, she says, “It’s … thorough.”

  (Diplomacy. Also not his.)

  “It has to be,” he says. “I want Vestige to be perfect.”

  He doesn’t say, You.

  “I know,” she says, in a way he doesn’t like, but by then they’re standing in front of Paul’s office, and she’s closing the door.

  This floor has a balcony overlooking the atrium.

  He sticks close to the wall all the way back.

  He goes home and erases her avatar from his program.

  (Not like he cares what she thinks, but there’s no harm in cleaning house.)

  Marketing calls them in for a meeting about the press announcement.

  They talk a lot about advertising and luxury markets and consumer interest and the company’s planned stock reissue and how the Patents team is standing by any time they want to hand over code.

  “Aesthetics has done some really amazing work,” Marketing says, and Mason fakes polite interest as hard as he can so he doesn’t stare at the photo.

  (It’s not quite Nadia; it’s close enough that Mason’s throat goes tight, but it’s a polished, prettier version, the kind of body you’d use if you wanted to immortalize your greyhound in a way society would accept.)

  “Gorgeous,” Paul says, and then with a smile, “is she single?” and the Marketing guys crack up.

  (One of them says, “Now now, Paul, we’re still hoping you can make a studio match—HR would be pleased,” and Paul looks admirably amenable for a guy who’s in love with a woman he thinks he made.)

  It’s only Paul on the schedule to present, of course—Mason’s not a guy you put in front of a camera—and it’s far enough away that they’ll have time to polish the code.

  “Naturally, you should have the prototype presentable ASAP,” the Marketing VP says. “We need a pretty face for the ads, and we need her to have her personality installed by then. Aesthetics seems to think it’s already in place, in some form?”

  The VP’s face is just bland enough not to mean anything by it, if their consciences don’t get the better of them.

  Don’t you dare, Mason thinks, don’t you dare tell them for a chance to keep her, second-gen or not, it’s a trap, not one word, think about what will happen to her.

  (She’s still a doll, he thinks, deeper, ruthlessly; something will happen to her eventually.)

  “I don’t know a thing about the particulars, I’m afraid,” Paul says, and having thus absolved himself he throws a casual look at Mason.

  Mason thinks, You asshole. He thinks, Here’s where I rat him out.

  He grits his teeth and smiles.

  “We’ve been running tests,” he says. “Would you like to see Galatea?” Then, in his best Paul impression, “She has a crush on Paul, of course.”

  The Marketing guys laugh, and Mason pulls up Galatea on his pad, and as the lights go down he catches Paul glancing gratefully in his direction.

  He hates how strange it feels to have someone be grateful to him; he hates that it’s Paul.

  Paul walks out with the Marketing guys, grinning and charming and empty, and from the plans they’re making for the announcement and the new projects they’re already asking him about, Mason suspects that’s the last time he’ll ever see Paul.

  It’s so lonely in his office he thinks about turning on Galatea, just for company.

  (He’s no better than some.)

  LiveScribe: MORI PRESS CONFERENCE—VESTIGE, PT 1.

  SEARCH PARAMETERS—BEGIN: 10:05:27, END: 10:08:43

  PAUL WHITCOVER: From the company that brought you M
emento, which has not only pioneered the Alpha series real-time response interface, but has also brought comfort to grieving families across the world.

  It’s this focus on the humanity behind the technology that is Mori’s greatest achievement, and it is what has made possible what I am about to show you. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present: Galatea.

  [MORIVESTIGE00001.img available through LiveSketch link]

  [APPLAUSE, CALLS, SHOUTS]

  PAUL WHITCOVER: Galatea isn’t human, but she’s the nearest thing. She’s the prototype of our Vestige model, which shifts the paradigm of robotics in ways we have only begun to guess—if you can tear your eyes away from her long enough.

  [LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE]

  PAUL WHITCOVER: Each Vestige features critical-thinking initiatives so advanced it not only sustains the initial personality, but allows the processor to learn from new stimuli, to form attachments—to grow in the same way the human mind does. This Vestige is built on a donor actress—anonymous, for now, though I suspect some in the audience will know who she is as soon as you talk to her.

  [LAUGHTER]

  In seriousness, I would like to honor everyone at Mori who participated in the development of such a remarkable thing. The stock market will tell you that this is an achievement of great technical merit, and that’s true. However, those who have honored loved ones with a Memento doll will tell you that this is a triumph over the grieving heart, and it’s this that means the most to Mori.

  Understandably, due to the difficulty of crafting each doll, the Vestige is a very limited product. However, our engineers are already developing alternate uses for this technology that you will soon see more of—and that might yet change your world.

  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being here today. It is not only my honor, but my privilege.

  [APPLAUSE]

  Small-group interviews with Vestige will be offered to members of the press. Check your entrance ticket. Thank you again, everyone, really, this is such a thrill, I’m glad you could be here. If you’d—

  The phone call comes from some internal extension he’s never seen, but he’s too distracted by the streaming press-conference footage to screen it.

  Paul is made for television; he can practically see the HR people arranging for his transfer to Public Relations.

  (He can’t believe Paul carried through with Nadia the Aesthetic Consultant. He can absolutely believe Paul named her Galatea.)

  “This is Mason.”

  There’s nothing on the other end, but he knows it’s her.

  He hangs up, runs for the elevator.

  Nadia’s on the floor in the library, twitching like she got fifty thousand volts, and he drops to his knees and pulls the connecting cable out of her skull.

  “We have to get you to a hospital,” he says, which is the stupidest thing that’s ever come out of his mouth (he watches too many movies). What she needs is an antivirus screen in one of the SysTech labs.

  Maybe it’s for her sake he says it, so they can keep pretending she’s real until she tells him otherwise.

  “It’s the baseline,” she says, and he can’t imagine what she was doing in there.

  He says, “I’ll get you to an Anti-V, hang on.”

  “No,” she manages.

  Then her eyes go blank and flat, and something inside her makes an awful little click.

  He scoops her up without thinking, moves to the elevator as fast as he can.

  He has to get her home.

  He makes it in seven minutes (he’ll be paying a lot of tickets later), carries her through the loft. She’s stopped twitching, and he doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.

  He assumes she’s tougher than she looks—God knows how many upgrades Paul’s put her through—but you never know. She’s light enough in his arms that he wonders how she was ever expected to last.

  He sets her on one of the chaises the Mori designer insisted mimicked the lines of the living room, drags it through the doorway to his study.

  He finds the socket (behind one ear), the same place as Memento; rich people don’t care for visible flaws.

  He plugs her into his program.

  It feels slimy, like he’s showing her into his bedroom, but at least Mori won’t monitor the process.

  Her head is limp, her eyes half-lidded and unseeing.

  “Hold on,” he says, like some asshole, pulls up his program.

  (Now he’s sorry he deleted her avatar; he could help her faster if he had any framework ready to go.)

  The code scans. Some of it is over his head—some parts of her baseline Paul got from the black market. (Black-market programmers can do amazing work. If he gets out of this alive, he might join up with them.)

  He recognizes a few lines of his own code that have integrated, feels prouder than he should.

  He recognizes some ID stamps that make his whole chest go tight, and his eyes ache.

  Paul’s an idiot, he thinks, wants to punch something.

  Then he sees the first corruption, and his work begins.

  He’s never worked with a whole system. It’s always been lines of code sent to points unknown; Galatea was the first time he’d worked with anything close to a final product.

  Now Nadia is staring at the ceiling with those awful empty eyes, and his fingers shake.

  If he thinks of this as surgery he’s going to be ill. He turns so he can’t see her.

  After a while he hits a stride; it takes him back to being twelve, recreating their apartment in a few thousand lines of code, down to the squeak in the hall.

  (“That’s very … specific,” his mother said, and that was when he began to suspect his imagination was wanting.)

  When he finishes the last line, the code flickers, and he’s terrified that it will be nothing but a string of zeros like a flatline.

  But it cycles again, faster than he can read it, and then there’s a boot file like Galatea’s, and he thinks, Fuck, I did it.

  Then her irises stutter, and she wakes up.

  She makes an awful, hollow noise, and he reaches for her hand, stops—maybe that’s the last thing you need when you’re having a panic reboot.

  She looks at him, focuses.

  “You should check the code,” he says. “I’m not sure if I got it all.”

  There’s a brief pause.

  “You did,” she says, and when her eyes close he realizes she’s gone to sleep and not shorted out. After some debate he carries her to the bed, feeling like a total idiot. He didn’t realize they slept.

  (Maybe it was Paul’s doing, to make her more human; he had planned for better things.)

  He sits in front of his computer for a long time, looking at the code with his finger on the Save button, deciding what kind of guy he is.

  (That’s the nice thing about programs, he always thought; you only ever deal in absolutes—yes, or no.)

  When he finally turns in his chair, she’s in the doorway, watching him.

  “I erased it,” he says.

  She says, “I know,” in a tone that makes him wonder how long she’s been standing there.

  She sits on the edge of the chaise, rolls one shoulder like she’s human and it hurts.

  “Were you trying to kill yourself?” he asks.

  She pulls a face.

  He flushes. “No, not that I want—I just, have a game I play, and in the game you jumped. I’ve always been worried.”

  It sounds exactly as creepy as it is, and he’s grateful she looks at his computer and doesn’t ask what else he did with her besides watch her jump.

  I would have jumped if I were you and knew what I was in for, he thinks, but some people take the easy way out.

  Nadia sits like a human gathering her thoughts. Mason watches her face (can’t help it), wonders how long she has.

  The prototype is live; pretty soon, someone at Mori will realize how much Vestige acts like Nadia.

  Maybe they won’t deactivate her. Paul’s smart enough
to leverage his success for some lenience; he can get what he wants out of them, maybe.

  (To keep her, Mason thinks, wonders why there’s no way for Nadia to win.)

  “Galatea doesn’t remember her baseline,” Nadia says, after a long time. “She thinks that’s who she always was. Paul said I started with a random template, like her, and I thought I had kept track of what you changed.”

  Mason thinks about her fondness for libraries; he thinks how she sat in his office for months, listening to them talk about what was going to happen to her next.

  She pauses where a human would take a breath. She’s the most beautiful machine in the world.

  “But the new Vestige prototype was based on a remnant,” she says. “All the others will be based on just one person. I had to know if I started as someone else.”

  Mason’s heart is in his throat. “And?”

  She looks at him. “I didn’t get that far.”

  She means, You must have.

  He shrugs. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” he says. “I’m not Paul.”

  “I didn’t call Paul,” she says.

  (She had called him; she knew how he would respond to a problem. People are easy to predict. It’s how you build preferences.)

  If he were a worse man, he’d take it as a declaration of love.

  Instead he says, “Paul thought you were standard. He got your baseline from the black market, to keep Mori out, and they told him it was.”

  He stops, wonders how to go on.

  “Who was I?” she says, finally.

  “They didn’t use a real name for her,” he says. “There’s no knowing.”

  (The black-market programmer was also a sucker for stories; he’d tagged her remnant “Galatea.” Mason will take that with him to the grave.)

  She looks at him.

  He thinks about the first look she ever gave him, wary and hard in an expression he never saw again, and the way she looked as Galatea fell in love with Paul, realizing she had lost herself but with no way of knowing how much.

  He thinks about her avatar leaping over the balcony and disappearing.

  He’d leave with her tonight, take his chances working on the black market, if she wanted him to. He’d cover for her as long as he could, if she wanted to go alone.