by D. A. Hill
James Newton had no answer that could possibly soften the boy’s loss. He said nothing in reply, he just choked back his own tears and held Eric’s hand tight, letting him know he was not alone.
—o—
Cyrus Jones looked up from his console to see James Newton standing over him. There was nothing unusual about that—Newton dropped by to talk with him at least once a day sometimes more. “What is it James?” he asked. Cyrus could tell from the look on Newton’s face that he had something to tell him and he was not going to like it.
“We have two new passengers on the Ark,” Newton replied.
That was good news. Cyrus looked at Newton expectantly, waiting for the bad news he knew was coming.
“They’re children,” Newton added.
Cyrus tried not to jump to conclusions. Maybe it would not be as bad as he feared; the term children covered a wide range of scenarios. “How old are they?”
“Four and ten. Eric and Elizabeth Carlson. The President’s children.”
“Shit, James,” Cyrus said jumping out of his chair, making no attempt to hide the extreme sense of alarm he felt at Newton’s revelation. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You do know a child has never been tested as an EM right?”
“I do.”
“Well we have absolutely no idea what the effects will be or how to mimic the development of a child’s brain. Especially a four year old. And they’re the President’s children for the love of God! Do you really want me experimenting on the President’s children?”
“Cyrus, calm down. Look, what’s the alternative? You know what will happen if we leave them behind. Is there anything worse that can happen to them here than that?”
“But we never talked about taking children!” It was a completely new variable. Cyrus did not like the implications of that.
“We’re supposed to be saving civilization Cyrus. What’s a society without children? I’m sure you can adjust the program to take account of a child’s brain development. That can’t be any harder than the challenges you’ve already solved.”
“I suppose you’re right, but even so...” Cyrus knew Newton was manipulating him, appealing to his technical abilities like that. Even so it should have worked—Cyrus knew he was technically up to the task, and normally could not have resisted the challenge—but they were so far behind now, he simply did not have time to take on more work.
Newton could see that Cyrus was not convinced. “Do you know how hard it was for their parents to leave them here, to say goodbye knowing they would never see them again? But these children don’t understand any of that. All they know is that they’ve been abandoned. We can’t abandon them again.”
Cyrus knew Newton was right. A society needed children. But he kept coming back to the fact that he was so far behind on the programming work now that he could not possibly finish in time, and every time he looked the schedule seemed to get shorter. He was feeling as stressed and overwhelmed as he had ever felt in his life and the consequences of his failing were bigger than they had ever been. “Something’s got to give James. If I take this on, there are other important functions I just won’t have time to include.”
“I understand,” Newton replied.
“OK, so long as you accept that reality,” Cyrus replied. “I’ll see what I can do, but just so it’s clear, I’m not agreeing to anything until I consult with Dr. Ivanov and check that this is even possible.”
chapter 10
February 2046
Since meeting Emmanuel, Regina Lopez had been thinking constantly about Newton’s Ark and what it would be like to be an EM. Her decision to take care of Elizabeth Carlson only increased her preoccupation with the issue. Cyrus Jones had explained the fundamentals to her, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized she did not really understand how the virtual environment worked. There was only one way to remedy that. She just hoped she could avoid a fight with Cyrus Jones long enough to get the information she wanted.
—o—
“I’d like you to meet Eric Carlson,” Manny said as he brought the boy in to the interface room. “Eric this is Cyrus Jones and this is Elena Ivanov.” After a week of preparation they were ready to begin testing the code he had written to mimic the development of a child’s brain. They had decided to start with Eric; being the older child he was the easier of the two cases.
“Hello Eric,” Cyrus said offering his hand and trying his best to appear friendly, not that he really knew what friendly looked like to a kid that age. But he could see from the dead and defeated look in the child’s eyes that it was important not to frighten him, so he made the effort.
The boy silently shook Cyrus’s hand.
“I’m afraid he hasn’t said anything since he arrived,” Manny explained.
“That’s alright,” Cyrus said reassuringly. “Eric can help us without having to speak. OK, Eric all we are going to do is put some wires on you and get some pictures of your brain. Is that OK with you?”
Eric nodded but still did not speak.
“Come back in an hour,” Cyrus told Manny as he and Elena began attaching the cables to the boy. To keep Eric calm Cyrus began making idle chatter about dragons and spaceships and video games and anything else he thought might amuse and distract a ten year old boy.
—o—
“Thank you Eric, you did very well,” Cyrus said with a smile. “We’re finished here so you can go back with Manny now.”
“Come on then Eric,” Manny said reaching for the boy when he failed to respond to Cyrus’s prompt.
“No!” the boy wailed.
Manny stepped back, surprised by the outburst and by the fact that Eric had spoken. “What’s the matter Eric?” Manny asked in his gentlest voice, trying his best to soothe him.
“I want to stay here with Cyrus,” he replied as he began crying.
Cyrus watched as Manny tried to coax the boy to leave. Eric just continued to cry and begging to stay. Short of physically dragging the boy away he could not see Manny succeeding. “How about this Eric,” Cyrus said, kneeling so he could talk to him at eye level, “I’ll come and visit you later tonight. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” Eric replied as he threw his arms around Cyrus’s neck. “Do you promise?”
“I promise,” Cyrus said as he gently removed Eric’s arms and put his hand in Manny’s. Cyrus knew he would have to keep his promise. He hoped that the boy would leave him alone after that.
—o—
“I’m sorry to intrude Major,” he said when Regina Lopez answered the door to her quarters. “But I promised Eric I would come by.”
“I’m glad you did,” she answered. “He’s been asking for you ever since my father brought him back. Whatever you did when he was with you, it worked. He’s spoken more in the past few hours than he has since he arrived.”
“I honestly have no idea why,” Cyrus answered. “I was just trying to keep him calm, talking to him, telling him stories and jokes. I have no idea about kids. I was making it up as I went along.”
“Please, come in. He refused to go to sleep until you came and it’s way past his bedtime.”
“Hello Eric,” he said as he sat on the boy’s bed. “Major Lopez tells me you wouldn’t go to sleep.”
“I was waiting for you,” Eric said throwing his arms around Cyrus again.
Cyrus felt awkward, but figured he should hug the boy back. “Well I’m here now, so it’s time for you to sleep. Can you do that for me?”
“Only if you promise to read me a story,” Eric said.
“It’s much too late for that now,” Cyrus answered. It was true, it was way too late, but he also wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.
“Tomorrow then?” the boy countered.
Cyrus did not want to have to do this again. But he also wanted to leave as quickly as possible and he could not see any easier way out. Eric was still hanging on tight. “OK, I’ll come back tomorrow night and read you a story. I
f that’s OK with Major Lopez and Manny.”
“Absolutely,” she answered relieved that someone was finally making progress with Eric.
Manny just smiled knowingly.
—o—
Regina Lopez knew exactly where to find Cyrus Jones. He was working almost around the clock now on programming Newton’s Ark. There was no cafeteria here in the bunker, and he was not asleep. She had already check in the interface room. That left only one other place he could be—at his computer terminal.
When she found him he was clearly engrossed in whatever task he was tackling. She had never met anyone who could concentrate as intensely as Cyrus did—a bomb could go off and he probably would not notice. She did not like interrupting him when he was so busy, and she desperately wanted to avoid another awkward encounter, but she had an important decision to make, and she could only make it if she fully understood the consequences. She made a point of striding confidently towards his desk. “Hello Cyrus,” she said with no response. She repeated herself twice before she finally tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “Hello Cyrus,” she said as pleasantly as she could manage.
“Hello Major,” Cyrus replied looking up from his terminal, wondering what her unexpectedly friendly tone meant.
“Sorry to interrupt you, but if you can spare some time I have some questions about the virtual environment.”
“Of course Major,” he replied. The truth was he could not spare the time. But he was intrigued by the fact that she had questions. Since their initial meeting when she had asked about the drone program, her attitude to the virtual environment and EMs had been disinterest at best, hostility at worst. He wanted to ask what had sparked her renewed interest, but decided it was better not to risk annoying her again. If she wanted him to know she would tell him. “What is it I can help you with?” he said, indicating the seat next to him.
Regina Lopez sat down. “I think I understand, at least in principle, the emulation of the human mind and the human body. What I don’t understand is the emulation of the environment and how the EMs interact with that.”
“It’s an extension of the same principles. All we know about our environment is what our senses tell us. So the trick is in generating the right signals to mimic those sensory inputs.”
“I don’t understand,” Regina said.
“Take the very first test with did with your father—I mean Emmanuel—where we got him to eat an apple. The computer didn’t create an apple. It created the perception of an apple.”
“How did it do that?”
“The computer combines a model of what an apple is with the model of the EM’s senses to generate the correct sensory inputs. For example, the model of an apple says that the apple reflects certain wavelengths of light. The model of the EM’s eyesight defines how those wavelengths of light are received. Between them they generate signals to the program that is the EM’s brain that the EM senses as the apple being round and red.”
“Sounds complicated,” she said.
“That’s actually a greatly simplified scenario. For example, the simulation of the room has to interact with the simulations of the apple and the EM’s senses so that the visual perception of the apple changes as the lighting in the room changes. All the other laws of physics and chemistry need to be programmed into the virtual environment as well, so the apple doesn’t appear to fall through the floor or float in the air and so it tastes sweet and makes that certain sound when you bite into it and so on.”
“I think I understand,” she said impressed at how Cyrus could figure all of this out. He really was one of the smartest people she had ever met. Almost intimidatingly smart.
“Good. Anything else Major?” he asked.
“One more question. When do you plan to start loading the EMs?”
“Not until we have to,” he answered.
His answer surprised her. For some reason she did not understand, she had assumed they would want to load the EMs as soon as possible. “Why is that?”
“Well, first the virtual environment is not ready.”
“But isn’t Emmanuel already in there?” she asked.
“He’s in a virtual environment, not the virtual environment. We haven’t decided what the environment for Newton’s Ark will be yet. The environment he’s in is very limited—just a few rooms—and we’re still testing.”
“You said first. What’s the other reason?”
“So we can transfer as much of the physical person’s life, their experience, their memories, to the EM,” he answered.
“What does that mean?”
“Say we loaded your EM today Major,” he said. “Just hypothetically; I know you’re not interested,” he added quickly, before she had a chance to take offense at his presumption. “Then imagine we don’t launch for another year. What happens to that year of your life once your physical self is gone? How much of your life can be missing before your EM is still you?”
Regina Lopez didn’t have an answer to that question; thinking about this stuff was like existential angst on steroids. She also had no more questions. She understood enough to make her decision; more technical information would not make her choice any easier. “Thank you Cyrus,” she said as she left, pleased that the discussion had gone well, that they had not managed to irritate each other. In fact it had been quite pleasant talking to him like this.
—o—
The decor in the meeting room looked like a museum piece from the twentieth century. The other notable features were the lack of windows, concrete walls four and half feet thick and the fact that the room was sixty-five feet underground. It had originally been the recreation room for the missile officers who had been stationed here around the clock, ready to respond at a moment’s notice to an order to begin the nuclear holocaust.
They were now living at the launch facility—the bunker as they had taken to calling it. Jenny had been hiding out here since November and Cyrus since FBI agents had come looking for him a few weeks earlier. Cyrus liked to joke about how he and his sister had spent a lovely family Christmas together in the bunker. In reality it had been hard; isolation and fear did not make for a relaxing stay. It just made sense for the rest of the team to be there too, especially now that traveling to and from Denver was becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous.
All they were missing now were a few pieces of the orbital vehicle that were in the final stages of fabrication at the Denver facility. That and their all important cargo—people—a fact that James Newton was in the process of pointing out to them. “So far we’ve got ten passengers including the children. We can’t rebuild a civilization from ten people.”
“Twelve,” Regina corrected him. She looked at Manny who smiled and nodded. “My father and I will be coming along for the ride.”
Cyrus felt his heart stop for a moment. Over the past few weeks he had found himself thinking about this intriguing woman more and more. He had no evidence that she returned his feelings. In fact any evidence he had suggested just the opposite, that when she deigned to think of him it was not happy thoughts, but that did not change the fact that he had come to love her, as ridiculous as that was. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and what his heart wanted was Regina Lopez. That she did not return his feelings hurt Cyrus less than the knowledge that the woman he loved would soon be dead. And now, with just one word, with that one word, those six letters, that one syllable that slipped so easily of the tongue—twelve—she had delivered him from a growing sense of despair.
“Twelve,” James repeated as he noticed the smiles break across not only Manny and Emmanuel’s faces but also Cyrus’s. He wondered what had changed her mind. Had Manny and Emmanuel simply worn her down? More likely it was her growing attachment to Elizabeth. Newton had hoped she would eventually change her mind, but never envisaged that a four year old girl would be the catalyst.
“Actually it’s thirteen if you count me,” Emmanuel said.
“I stand corrected. Thirteen,” James N
ewton said. “We’re still just a little bit short though. The problem is that most people simply cannot accept the idea of being an EM. What can we do about that? Any suggestions, because I’ve tried every argument in the book. Rational, emotional, moral, you name it.”
“Simple,” Manny Smith said. “Don’t tell them,” he added as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. Everyone looked at him in shock, like he had just suggested taking up cannibalism. “I spent all those years with my mind flying around in drones and was none the wiser. Didn’t affect my ability to complete the missions. Word is that my EM was an ace pilot,” he said proudly. “So I must have been OK in there.” He tapped his head with his fist. “And it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm.”
“Dad! We can’t do that,” Regina said.
“Gina, I remember those missions. Those memories are as real as any of my other memories. The missions were real. So what does it matter that I didn’t know I was an EM?”
“This life is as real as anything on the outside was,” Emmanuel added. “As you know, I wouldn’t give it up.”
“No we have to tell them the truth, Dad,” Regina argued, responding to both of them. “They have a right to know.” Regina had tried not calling Emmanuel Dad. He was so much her father that it simply had not worked. She would make a conscious effort to call him Emmanuel for a while but as soon as her guard was down it would slip out—Dad—so easily that she was usually unaware she had even said it. Eventually she surrendered to the inevitable and stopped thinking about the fact that both of these men were her father.
“Look at what the truth has done. Telling the truth is not always the right course of action. I should know,” Jenny said. “Thousands of people are dead and millions more are going to die, all because I insisted on telling the truth, even though Cyrus and James tried to warn me,” she added hanging her head, the enormous weight of regret pressing heavily on her shoulders. Cyrus put his hand on his sister’s hand in an attempt to comfort her.
“Are we going to tell Eric?” Manny asked. “Are you going to tell Elizabeth?”
