by Seth Rain
‘The map of evolution, at the very beginning, is beautifully simple. There are only so many ways life has to begin. We know all the ways. The complexity of living things we see on the planet is remarkable. But not so remarkable that we cannot explain it.’
Noah took a step towards Juliet. ‘Let’s go. I don’t understand what any of this has—’
Freya put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. ‘Gabriel told me something,’ she said to Juliet.
‘Gabriel says a lot of things. The trick is to stop him saying things; that’s when he makes most sense.’
‘He told me…’ Freya glanced at Noah. ‘He told me the AI couldn’t read Scott’s date.’
‘Impossible,’ Juliet said. ‘If he was given a date, it is correct.’
‘Scott’s date,’ Freya said. ‘We have seen it in different places. It means something. Do you know what it is?’
‘It is the date of your friend’s death,’ Juliet said.
‘No,’ Freya said, ‘I don’t think that’s all it is.’
With some effort, Juliet got to her feet. She raised her face and took a moment to feel the breeze against her skin. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.
‘Who?’ Noah asked.
Freya pointed to the house. ‘Gabriel’s here. He’s parked outside your house.’
Juliet raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t he want to see me?’
‘He said you wouldn’t want to see him.’
Juliet brushed earth from the front of her dress. ‘He got that right. He’s a clever man. But he’s dumb when it comes to understanding people.’
‘I get that,’ Freya said.
Juliet’s lips curled a little, edging towards a smile.
Thirty-Nine
Not knowing what to expect, Scott scanned the room for the AI, as though it might have a face or a presence. The room was cool, filled with a constant humming. It contained banks of black monoliths, each one tall and robust with red and green lights flashing in an irregular pattern. Between each row was a space barely wide enough for a person to walk through.
Scott followed Mathew, all the time scanning the rows of computers for some clue as to how the AI worked.
‘Only trust ones and zeroes,’ Mathew said. ‘You know where you are with ones and zeroes. It’s absolute – there are no grey areas. Not like people. Ones and zeroes. It is – or it isn’t. We made computers this way because it’s what we want to be. We want to know each other just as we know whether a digit is a one or a zero.’
Scott struggled to keep up with Mathew – both his strides and his words.
‘Many people will tell you they’re searching for the truth, but quite often, the truth they’re searching for isn’t presented in ones and zeroes. The truth they seek is expressed in words. And words are inaccurate. Words are blunt instruments. Words are brutal weapons that start wars and are too inelegant to end them.’
Mathew stopped to examine one of the computers. ‘This was one of the first,’ he said. ‘Nearly twelve years ago. One of the first we constructed.’ He rested his hand against it.
Scott waited. ‘It’s incredible,’ he said looking back through the rows of computers.
‘Have you visited the Sistine Chapel?’ Mathew asked.
Scott shook his head.
‘Four years,’ Mathew said, his hand still resting against the computer. ‘It took Michelangelo four years to paint the ceiling. I tried for four years. But after twelve, I’m still working on the AI.’
Mathew headed down another path between banks of computers. They emerged into a space where each pathway converged. In the space was a small desk with a bank of holo-screens and an old-fashioned keyboard Scott had not seen for some time. Next to the desk stood two wooden stools.
‘My paintbrush,’ Mathew said, pointing to his desk. ‘I still use the old keyboards. The swiping and hand gestures slow me down.’
Scott turned on the spot. It was like being at the centre of a flower.
Mathew took a stool and arranged it by his table. ‘Sit,’ Mathew said, and began to tap on the keyboard. ‘Please.’
Scott sat on the stool. Mathew gestured for the holo-screen to twist away so that Scott couldn’t see what he was typing.
‘What are you doing?’ Scott asked.
Mathew glanced at Scott’s hand for a moment, then reached into his desk and pulled out a piece of white material that was covered in wires and cables. Scott saw it was a cap of some sort. Mathew reached out to put it on Scott’s head.
‘Wait,’ Scott said. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s too complex to explain,’ Mathew said, then again moved to put the cap on Scott’s head.
Scott held up his hand to stop him. ‘You’re going to have to give me the simple version if you want to use that thing on me.’
Mathew’s shoulders sagged and he blinked slowly. ‘It’s a little old now. But it monitors brain waves – patterns. It’s totally harmless.’
The cap looked far from harmless. Scott took it from Mathew and placed it on his own head. The wires and cables fell about his shoulders like thick strands of hair. One at a time, Mathew adjusted each wire, attaching some of them to wires that came out of the terminal on the desk. Finally, he stood at the table, flexed his fingers and began typing.
‘Mathew,’ Scott said, ‘I’m going to need you to tell me what you’re doing.’
As he typed, Mathew spoke quickly. ‘You, the world, the universe, are made up of matter. Matter adheres to laws. Understand those laws and you understand time. Understand time and you know what has happened and what will happen. You, me, everyone, is placed somewhere in the midst of all this. We know that decisions we make can alter the path we are on. It is not the fault of humans. Humans have evolved to be anthropocentric – to see themselves as the centre of the universe. It has fared us well.’
Scott watched Mathew typing.
‘And free will?’ Scott asked.
‘Arrogance,’ Mathew said. ‘To think, if time were rewound, a person might choose differently.’ He stopped typing and stared at the holo-screen. ‘Think about it for a second. Everything is identical – you, the world, the universe – yet you could have chosen differently. How? Why? What exactly would be doing the choosing? If you had chosen differently, then you wouldn’t have been you. The reason you choose what you choose is because you are who you are. It’s insane, foolish, childish to think otherwise.’
Scott couldn’t argue with anything Mathew had said.
Mathew gestured at the holo-screen and it turned and flickered so Scott could see it. ‘Let me show you,’ The screen was black. ‘Close your eyes.’
Scott closed them.
‘Think of a colour.’
Scott thought of one.
‘Open your eyes.’
When he did, he saw the word ‘green’ on the holo-screen.
‘It might have read my decision as it was made.’
Mathew shook his head. ‘I asked the computer that question a minute ago.’
Scott stared at the screen.
‘You’re not convinced? Let me try something else.’
He typed on the machine then took a pad of paper from his drawer and wrote something on it. ‘Don’t read it,’ he said, handing Scott a folded piece of paper. ‘Close your eyes.’
Scott closed his eyes.
‘Think of a person.’
The air grew cooler and the hairs on Scott’s arms stood on end. He nodded.
‘Tell me,’ Mathew said.
‘Rebecca,’ he said. ‘My wife.’
Mathew nodded at the piece of paper. Scott opened it. On it was written: ‘You will say Rebecca because she is your wife. But this is not the person you were thinking of.’
Scott held his breath.
Mathew’s expression didn’t change. He typed something on his keyboard then checked on the rows of computers. ‘Michelangelo’s frescoes are beautiful,’ he said. ‘They are beautiful because Michelangelo had no choice but to paint them. You recall that image of Adam reachin
g for God’s hand?’ Mathew, for the first time, looked into his eyes. ‘This here,’ he said, pointing to the black computers, ‘is us not only reaching for His hand, but holding it.’
‘But they’re convinced it’s wrong. Isaiah, Noah, Freya,’ Scott said. ‘They’re all convinced I’m going to show free will exists.’
‘Your date is correct,’ Mathew said.
Even though he’d made his peace with this some time ago, Scott recognised a loss he didn’t fully understand. All Mathew had said made sense, but his throat had closed up and his chest was pounding. The moment he had entered the room, what would happen had been set in stone. It was always going to happen this way. All this computing power, all this effort, had to be for something.
‘But who started this?’ Scott asked. ‘Who said my date was wrong?’
Mathew shrugged, still reading and typing. ‘Gabriel. Possibly. He hates the deterministic view. He has always held on to the notion of free will.’
‘What’s going to happen?’
Mathew’s fingers paused.
The date on Scott’s hand suddenly seemed more important again. For so long he’d seen his date as definite, only for it to lose significance when Paul found him. The familiar angles of the tattoo on his hand matched the shape of the date when he would die, would match – if anyone bothered to arrange it – the shape of the date engraved on his tombstone. It was childish to think it, so he shook it from his thoughts.
‘Mathew,’ he said slowly. ‘What’s going to happen?’
Mathew’s shoulders slumped. ‘Nothing will happen. People will believe what they have been told rather than believe the evidence.’
‘What evidence?’
‘Everything you’re doing, everything you’ve asked, is already here in the AI.’ He placed a hand on the keyboard. ‘Everything.’
The machines surrounding them were exact and sharp-edged. Something deep beneath their matt black surfaces glowed now and then, as though organs inside were powering the machine’s performance.
‘How?’ Scott asked. ‘I don’t understand how.’
‘We invented the first AI together: Gabriel, Juliet and me. It was our way of determining future illnesses and diseases. It worked, but wasn’t perfect. I asked the AI to design another system: bigger, better, more comprehensive. When the AI designed its first descendant, it was one of those moments when you see something for the first time that had been there in front of you all along. And with every improvement it made, it designed an even more efficient computer that in turn designed an even more powerful machine. The pace at which this happened was limited only by our lumbering speed of manufacturing. Still, the leaps the AI made each time were incredible. Within two years the AI had designed ten new machines, each with processing speeds far superior than the human brain.’
Scott’s eyes flickered.
Mathew continued, his voice eager, his mannerisms excited. ‘When the AI in Geneva, at the Large Hadron Collider, discovered dark matter, everything changed. The scientists there were trying to catch up with it. But all the time, the AI accelerated in complexity, moving further and further away from the comprehension of even the most brilliant scientists.’
Scott faced the banks of computers again. He was sitting inside the AI’s brain, inside a web of synapses.
‘At an atomic level,’ Mathew continued, ‘time is not the same. The AI in Geneva has to examine trillions of collisions of particles, but it soon worked out that it only had to examine the collisions that yielded particles of interest. It began to calculate which collisions would be important. Its predictions became so accurate that soon it was gazing into the future. It knew which particles, as they raced around the collider, would yield valuable data. The AI was seeing time at an atomic level. It was as though time before and after was all mapped out in one universe-sized atlas.’
‘And the AI in Geneva – is it the same as this?’
‘There are quantum-computers like this all around the world. At one time, they spoke to one another. But we soon boxed them in, worried they might advance without us. The AI’s thirst for data is insatiable.’
Scott noticed a heat coming from the machines that was electrical but smelled organic, like plants. ‘This AI,’ he said, ‘it is boxed in?’
‘It is now. Confined within these walls, if you like. Juliet developed a system that protects us. There are three passwords that Juliet, Gabriel and I have. Along with facial recognition and fingerprinting, our consent is needed – without it, the AI is unable to design more descendants.’
‘And the AI is right about my date?’ Scott asked.
‘Yes. You, like me, like everyone and everything, are made of atoms. Atoms are made up of quarks, which are made of strings that vibrate to a frequency understood by this AI. There is a symphony playing.’ Mathew lifted his chin and closed his eyes. ‘Listen. You can hear it. The strings. It is a tune we all know, deep in our stomach, in our chest, in the beating of our hearts. The AI knows the score of God’s music.’ Mathew smiled knowingly. ‘The AI is correct. Your date is correct.’
‘And what about the others?’ Scott asked. ‘The rest of the 144,000?’
‘They, like you, have been given an accurate date.’
‘But why does my date appear in different places?’ He offered his palm. Like graffitied on bridges?’
‘Ah … that?’ He stroked his chin. ‘Honestly? I don’t know.’
Scott thought back to the bridge and to Gregory, his date cut into his chest. ‘Couldn’t you ask the AI?’
Mathew appeared taken aback, before collecting himself. ‘The AI can do many things. Understanding the motivations of graffiti artists is low down on its list of priorities.’
‘And why 144,000?’ Scott asked.
Mathew opened his mouth, but stopped himself.
‘Mathew?’
‘I’m aware,’ Mathew said, ‘that there is a threshold when language moves from scientific to religious. I am not ignorant of this. Believe me, it is something I struggle with too.’ Mathew rubbed his hands together, each one trembling. ‘But I believe He is coming. I know it in the way this AI knows what is to come. I can’t explain how I know, but I know all the same.’
Scott listened to the low hum in the room, waves of sound throbbing like thought, like consciousness.
Forty
Freya sipped her tea; it was sweet and it felt decadent, even ridiculous, that she should be drinking it with everything that was happening.
‘Where is your friend now?’ Juliet asked.
‘Scott? When we left him, he was trying to reach Mathew.’
‘So Gabriel is convinced your friend’s date is wrong?’ Juliet asked.
‘Gabriel told us the AI couldn’t read Scott’s date,’ Freya said, placing her cup aside. ‘And this happened when you first discovered the 144,000.’
‘There was no 144,000. Not in the way you think.’ Juliet took a cake from the kitchen counter and placed it in the centre of the table.
‘What?’ Freya watched her let go of the plate. ‘What do you mean?’
The flush that had been on Juliet’s face when she was digging had disappeared, replaced by a pale translucency. She scanned the kitchen as if for something lost. She sat at the table. ‘This is going to sound crazy … but I think it was done deliberately by the AI.’
‘What?’ Freya asked. ‘Why?’
‘Are you a believer?’ Juliet asked her.
Freya nodded.
‘It was deliberate,’ Juliet said. ‘Necessary.’
‘I still don’t understand why,’ Freya said.
‘The AI became concerned with its self-preservation. It must have seen something that meant revealing this number of dates was necessary. Mathew was convinced it was a sign.’
‘Do you think He is coming?’ Noah asked.
‘No,’ Juliet said without pausing. ‘I’m sorry.’
Noah nodded, then bowed his head.
‘It was ten years ago we created the first
AI system. We used it to predict illness in patients. It worked perfectly. We were able to predict disease and inherited illnesses. It was the ultimate in preventative medicine.’
‘Life expectancy improved by twenty years,’ Freya said.
‘It did,’ Juliet said. ‘But Mathew wouldn’t stop. He programmed the AI to design a better system. And of course, it did … until the AI designed better hardware and software at a faster rate than Mathew could build it.’
‘Is that when you discovered the dates?’
Juliet pushed strands of loose hair behind her ear. ‘Gabriel wanted to stop Mathew. They argued.’
‘Is that why they have their own Watchers?’ Freya asked.
‘They are as stubborn as one another. It was Mathew who released the dates.’
‘Why?’ Noah asked.
‘He’s a devout man,’ Juliet said. ‘Always was. Gabriel too. It’s what led them to create the AI and the Illness Prevention Programme in the first place. But when Mathew stumbled upon the dates, he saw it as a sign.’
‘A sign of what?’ Freya asked.
‘You know,’ Juliet said. ‘The Rapture. Mathew sees the Rapture more like an invitation. It scares me, the way he talks. Always has. He saw the dates the AI had issued as an indication.’
‘Of what?’ Freya asked.
‘There were more dates,’ Juliet said, clenching her fists. ‘The dates centred on one in particular.’
‘More dates?’ Freya said. ‘How many more?’
‘Many,’ Juliet said. ‘I managed to stop the AI, box it in so it couldn’t connect with the internet or share the dates it discovered.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Freya said.
Juliet rubbed her forehead then pressed a finger and thumb into her eye sockets. ‘Believe me, I know how difficult it is to take in.’
‘How many more dates?’ Freya asked again.
Juliet sighed. ‘Millions. Billions. It’s capable of reading everyone’s date.’
It was impossible to comprehend, but Freya recognised the weight of what Juliet had kept to herself. The future of every person on the planet known; the dates of their death written in a series of irrefutable numbers.
