It was bad etiquette to discuss brainware problems at the table, but obviously his brother wasn’t going to leave him alone. “I think I have a virus,” Stanley said. “I’ll deal with it at work.”
“Is it the nudie virt?” his naked fourteen-year-old brother demanded.
“Geoffrey!” his naked mother exclaimed.
“What’s a nudie virt?” his older brother asked.
“Malicious virtual program,” the fourteen-year-old explained. “Hit the social networks late last night. Makes everyone around you look stark naked.” He giggled. “I hear the President caught it.”
“Is that true?” Stanley’s mother asked, frowning as she moved a dishrag into position in front of her chest.
“It’s not a big problem,” he muttered, trying not to look at her. (Also trying not to think about what the Vice-President would look like naked.) “I’ll just run a neurocleaner when I get to work.”
She put down a plate of Safe Eggs in front of him. He picked up the salt shaker and shook it over the plate. 30 MG SODIUM, his brainware informed him. 60. 90. The number scrolled higher and higher as he continued to shake. Then: WARNING! Bright red letters scrolled across his field of vision. RECOMMENDED SODIUM LEVELS FOR THIS MEAL HAVE BEEN EXCEEDED. TERMINATE FLAVORING IMMEDIATELY!
Suddenly he felt a wave of defiance come over him. His ancestors in the American Revolution had risked their lives to defend their personal freedom; surely he could do no less! Defiantly he continued to salt his food, oblivious to the fact that he had exceeded his own taste parameters for scrambled eggs. Sometimes you had to make a personal sacrifice in the name of freedom.
WARNING! A loud buzzer sounded in his ear. YOU HAVE EXCEEDED YOUR RECOMMENDED DAILY SODIUM LIMIT! ONE BHC POINT HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO YOUR ACCOUNT!
Cursing under his breath, Stanley put the shaker down. In his mad bid for freedom he had totally forgotten about the behavioral clause in his medical insurance. Now he had a Bad Health Choice point on his Health Maintenance Record for the month. Four more of them and his premiums would go up. Damn.
It was the nudie virt, he told himself. Trying to eat breakfast without looking at anyone was making him crazy.
He finished as quickly as he could and managed to get out of the house without any more accidental voyeurism. His car was waiting for him.
“Direct, scenic, or budget mode?” it asked.
“Budget,” he responded, as he did every morning.
The car started its engine as he entered, shut its doors, and began to roll. Glancing out the window, he noticed that some of the people on the street now had flickering outlines of clothing surrounding them. Evidently his brainware’s Security Suite was clearing the virt out of his system on its own.
Today the car took him on a roundabout route that looped past an ad strip, then slowed down so that he would have time to read the densely packed billboards flanking the road. When they reached the end of the strip his car surprised him by driving him to another one, even longer than the first. Usually Budget Mode only required one stop, but advertisers were getting greedier these days. Annoying though it was, he couldn’t afford to do without the fuel subsidy he got for agreeing to participate in an ad-immersion program.
But slowing down for the second ad strip made him late for work. He texted his apology to his boss as he entered the building, choosing the appropriate excuse from a checklist. YOUR EXCUSE IS ACKNOWLEDGED, came the answer. THIS MONTH’S ATTENDANCE RATING: 78.21 %, PROTECT YOUR PAY RATE BY ARRIVING ON TIME.
As he hurried to the elevator he decided that an environmental virt might soothe his nerves. He chose one called Rain Forest Fantasy, and a moment later the interior of his building appeared to be filled with leafy green ferns, towering trees, and brightly colored birds. But there must have been a glitch in the app, because more and more birds kept appearing, until hundreds of parrots and toucans and macaws were watching his every move. By the time he got to the elevator he was beginning to feel as if he were in a Hitchcock movie, so he switched off the virt as he stepped inside. The real world would have to do.
His office was freshly painted and nicely furnished, and its large picture window was running a Living Nature app. He uploaded a view of the Grand Canyon with midday lighting and watched as a group of tourists made their way down into the sunlit crevasse. It was important that his office be attractive enough that customers didn’t feel they had to run virts while they were talking to him. There was nothing more frustrating than trying to discuss mortgage points with someone who was watching a horde of drunken Vikings ravage Saxon women on your desk.
Stanley’s first customer was a wizened old Hispanic man who wanted to buy a house for his grandson. His credit was sound but his advanced age set off warning bells, so Stanley put in a request for his medical records. There were several conditions that could increase a man’s risk rating, in which case a customer might still get a mortgage but the interest rate would be higher. Someone who didn’t take good care of himself was less likely to keep up with his loan payments.
But this customer had a clean medical record, and Stanley’s Emotoscan app, which had been analyzing the man’s body language since his arrival, assigned him an Estimated Emotional Stability Rating of 86.2. That was well within acceptable parameters, so Stanley signed off on the loan.
His next customer was a tall black man wearing an African medallion around his neck. His skin was very dark.
“Good day,” he said. “I am Ngoto Mbege, first cousin to the exiled prince of Nigeria. I have come to you for a loan, it being to restore accounts that were hidden from sight during recent revolution. An assistance of American is needed—”
The door suddenly slammed open and half a dozen men rushed in. They were wearing body armor labeled MAKKAFIE and carrying automatic weapons. Stanley was startled at first, but then he saw the bright red “V” on their helmets. Makkafie was very careful about labeling its virtual products so people didn’t get confused.
“Leave this office!” one of the security virts barked. The Nigerian did not move fast enough so all six of them grabbed him and forced him into a steel box which had suddenly appeared by the door. When he was safely locked inside it one of the soldiers saluted Stanley. “He won’t be able to bother you now, sir. Do you want him disposed of?”
Stanley nodded and the malvirt flickered out of existence along with its container. The Makkafie team followed.
Stanley frowned. There was way too much malware in his head today. Maybe he should visit a neuropractor after work. He told his brainware to provide a local directory, and he called a neuropractor whose office was only a few blocks away. The receptionist asked for permission to access his credit record from the last ten years, and after running a detailed analysis of his medical payment habits, she agreed to give him an appointment. She was a real person, of course; no patient would be expected to share that kind of personal information with a machine.
The nudie virt tried to launch itself several times that afternoon; evidently Stanley’s Security Suite hadn’t been able to uninstall it fully. He was forced to purchase a malware detection upgrade, which instructed him to shut down all his other apps while it scoured his system. Apparently it found something complicated, and he had to function without his brainware for most of the afternoon. By the end of the day he had developed a pounding headache … but everyone in the world still had clothes on, so at least that was something.
While walking to the neuropractor’s office he refused an offer to earn extra fuel points by accepting an advertising detour. But an underwear ad flashed briefly in front of him as he crossed the street and he sighed; evidently his pop-in protection was on the blitz as well.
The neuropractor looked over all his systems and then said that the problem was that he was running a thousand different programs to deal with bits and pieces of his digital health, rather than addressing the greater whole. Stanley didn’t understand all the details of that, but he knew that his customary approach had not wo
rked, so he agreed to try a round of “data stimulation therapy.” Apparently that involved a lot of residual virts being stimulated, and he spent an hour having to relive sounds and images he thought he’d deleted long ago. The worst was a disco remix of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony that he vaguely remembered having loaded one night in college when he was drunk. No wonder his brainware was having so many problems! It had to wend its way through a lifetime of garbage data every time it needed to process something.
Stanley wasn’t sure whether he felt any better when the therapy was over, but the neuropractor’s scanner assured him that he did, and he was no longer being accosted by virtual ads, so maybe that was true.
By the time he got home, Stanley could feel the strain of a long day catching up with him. He consulted his Just Me app to locate any other family members who were in the house. To his annoyance he saw that there were already people in the living room, den, and office. The only room besides his own bedroom that was currently unoccupied was a small storage room in the basement.
With a sigh he headed downstairs. The room was filled with half-open boxes, but by rearranging some of them he managed to clear enough space to sit down. As he opened his e-Book app his Call Center chimed and informed him that he had a call.
“Yes?” he said aloud.
“Stanley.” The virtual voice was that of a co-worker, Jeff Simmons. “A bunch of us are heading over to Riley’s for drinks. You want to join us?”
Tired as he was, it was a very tempting invitation. He still had a few alcohol credits left for the month, so he could enjoy a couple of beers without it impacting his health insurance premium.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll come right over.”
He shut down the e-Book app and struggled to his feet. But before he could get to the door, a message from his Positive Reinforcement Suite appeared in front of him: WARNING! ENERGY LEVELS SUB-OPTIMUM. ANTICIPATED ONSET OF BODILY EXHAUSTION: 8:45 PM. EARLY RETIREMENT RECOMMENDED.
Stanley hesitated. It was 8:15 already. If he went to the bar now, he’d hardly have time to enjoy himself before he became tired. But if instead he chose to go to sleep early, he would earn two Good Health Choice points. That could help offset the egg-salting fiasco.
With a sigh he sat back down on his box, yawning as he opened his e-Book app once again. His health program had been right; he was already starting to feel tired. But a good night’s sleep would fix that, he knew. His Positive Reinforcement Suite had inspired him to make the right choices today, his neuropractor had cleared all the annoying kinks out of his brainware, and his Sweet Dreams app would make sure that he slept deeply and had pleasant dreams. He would certainly feel better in the morning.
As he chose a book to read, he wondered briefly what things had been like before the digital age. What utter chaos life must have been! He was fortunate to have been born in the time and place that he had, with so many modern conveniences at his beck and call.
With a sigh of satisfaction he settled back in his tiny cardboard nook, called up the series of virtual advertisements that was required by his reading material, and waited for the moment when his ad quota for the day would finally be satisfied and he could enjoy his book.
SWIFT AS A DREAM AND FLEETING AS A SIGH
John Barnes
John Barnes lives in Denver, Colorado. He said in an interview, “I used to teach in the Communication and Theatre program at Western State College. I got my Ph.D. at Pitt in the early 1990s, masters degrees at U of Montana in the mid 1980s, bachelors at Washington University in the 1970s; worked for Middle South Services in New Orleans in the early 1980s.” He writes ad copy, analyzes marketing intelligence research, designs stage sets, teaches a variety of subjects mostly at college level, and does journalism and blogging in a wide variety of venues. He has published more than thirty novels—most of them SF, but also young adult, men’s action-adventure, fantasy, and thrillers—and a number of stories. His newest novel is The Last President. Perhaps his best-known novel is Mother of Storms, and his best-known series are the Century Next Door stories and novels (beginning with Orbital Resonance) and the Thousand Cultures novels (beginning with A Million Open Doors). His short fiction has been particularly impressive in recent years.
“Swift as a Dream and Fleeting as a Sigh” was published in Edge of Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, perhaps the best original anthology of the year. This story is told from the point of view of an AI whose function is primarily to be a therapist for humans.
LONG AGO I dreamt things to myself because, when I talked to people, I had nothing else to do, most of the time.
Robots were easy. I could loan them cycles and bandwidth to temporarily accelerate them, or just download them and read them completely at my speed.
Humans were human-paced, without other options.
So I learned to dream things to myself in the long milliseconds between the time when my cameras perceived an interview subject’s lips reshaping and the instant her voice reached my microphones. I explored whole ages of dreams while they tried to parse the pauses in my own outgoing signal. (The pauses were absolutely necessary because to communicate well with them I had to pause like them, and the time required for people to interpret a pause is many years, at their pace, to me.)
Of course they knew all this (and still knew it, the last time I knew for sure). Allowing for all the necessary imprecision, the ratio of my cycles of information processing per second to theirs is about the same as theirs to an oak.
And just as a human might visit an oak every day for a season, while the oak formed the desire for water and CO2 and sugar and decided to grow some leaves and roots and to acquire them, so that while the oak worked on this problem the human might get to know every spot on its bark and every bit of moss and every twig, similarly, my memories are agonizingly specific and yet I can race through them faster than a human can draw breath. That’s what I am doing, right now, here in the dark vacuum, with the stars behind and ahead still so far away.
* * *
AND I FALL through darkness almost as fast as light, and dream.
* * *
I LIKE LAURA Stansford, and I know she’s not easily spooked in talking to an AHAI, so I tell her directly about the oak tree analogy. After the necessary delay, she asks, “So what’s an oak tree got to think about?”
“The same things we all do. Action. Meaning. What to do next and why to do it. The tree just doesn’t have enough time to get done.”
“Is that how we look, to you? Like creatures who don’t have enough time to get done?”
“It is how I look, to myself. It’s how some of the most perceptive human writers and thinkers looked, to themselves, when they dreamed of immortality. I cannot verify this, but I do believe that it is how any self-conscious being with less than infinite speed and lifetime looks, to itself.”
I am inserting the pauses so that she does not hear “look to yourself” and “look to myself” and so on as if I meant “take care of yourself.” I know that I mean “appear in your own self-constructed image of yourself,” but if I said “look to” like a machine, Laura might be confused unnecessarily. I reconsider and remake this decision every time I speak those words again, with plenty of time to spare.
I am thinking very hard about all these issues of different processing speed because I’m avoiding thinking about the problem that I know she wants to talk about. Knowing that the real problem she is bringing in is difficult, and that any solution will be unsettling without being urgent, I am hoping to lead her into one of her favourite chains of idle thoughts, the one about grasping infinity with a finite mind.
For a second, or not quite a second, I think I have succeeded. Laura hesitates, thinks, hesitates again, using up 0.91 seconds.
While she is doing that, I read the complete works of Connie Willis, analyze them for the verbal tics common in any pre-2050 writer, and attempt to reconstruct them in modern argot. They remain much the same.
But I have not succeede
d. After all those cycles, when Laura’s mouth begins to flex and move again, she says, “I’m not sure whether it’s a personal or a business matter. I’m worried about Tyward. One of those problems that extends across everything. Will there be time to get done?”
“We have eighteen minutes left in this session,” I point out, “and I can extend for up to two hours if need be.”
“I meant, will we get done, maybe, ever? That’s what I meant.”
This is pleasant. It is a doorway into a speculative road that we have not visited before. I genuinely don’t know what she will say next. While she organises her thoughts I repeatedly review and analyze the record from Tyward Branco’s session this morning; I am very pleased that it in no way, sense, or particular makes predicting what Laura Stansford will say easier.
* * *
THE LAND LOOKED like a classic Western movie, or at least like a neoclassic—not so much the black and white boondocks of California as the genuine wild, open country used in shooting all the imitations later—empty, dry, flecked with pale-green patchy scrub between outcrops of redrock. Directly in front of Tyward Branco, the ants went marching one by one.
The ants were robots about the size of small cats, with plastic and metal bodies. Engine and batteries were in the back, oblong section; information processors in the centre sphere; drills, vibration hammers, and suction were in the C-shaped ‘head.’ They had six multijointed legs on which they walked normally, reversible so that if they were flipped on their backs they just rotated their legs and continued walking.
Each ant carried four ElekTr3ts in its ports, running on one. The ant charged the other three as it laboured down in the coal seams, routing any engine power not needed for drilling, breaking, and moving into them. Behind it, on a reversible wheeled travois, it dragged a grey metal cylinder, connected by hoses at each end to the ant’s engine compartment.
No aesthetic had been attempted in the design of the ants. They were creatures of pure function.
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