Revision 7: DNA

by Terry Persun

  He turned around and shut down his visual content. Before he began, he decided to record his reactions in both digital and neurogrid circuitry, the prior for accuracy and the latter for emotional content. Like the machine that he was, Fenny first regarded his task then created a signal to begin.

  He didn’t move. The DNA circuits flashed an image of the room into all of Fenny’s circuits at once. But it ended in a flash. Fear set in, and doubts as to whether he could traverse the room at all. What if Dr. Klein awakened? What if he tripped over something he hadn’t even seen during his first excursion? Why was he even doing this? What would it prove? None of this helped him to understand who he was now or why he was here in the first place. His actions were merely games being played to keep his mind, his thoughts, his data, whatever it was, from tackling the important questions. The disappointment he felt was unbearable. “This proves nothing,” he said.

  At overload, Fenny relaxed onto his haunches. He had not moved forward one step. His neurogrid circuits were in control and switched from the DNA portion to alleviate the input load. He ran a quick evaluation on what had happened and learned that he could port experiences into his neurogrid or DNA-enhanced circuits for general or deep emotional content, for conceptual understanding and evaluation, or for relational data. Like his neurogrid, the DNA portion could override his motion circuits, stopping him in his tracks, as it were. He looked at his neurogrid and DNA circuits as problem-solving circuits. They were obviously not very good at repetition or direct goal completion. Not like his digital circuits. Give digital goals and they’d be completed perfectly. As a quick test, Fenny engaged his video and walked in an abstract manner through the maze of the room. At the workbench, he turned his video content off and engaged his digital memory to reverse his actions. In no time, he was across the room again.

  He repeated the action using his neurogrid circuits and found that he bumped into items occasionally. Unlike his DNA-enhanced circuits, though, he completed the activity without stalling. He knew from years of practice that his digital circuits could manipulate only what it was given. Neurogrid circuits were able to solve a problem outside the facts. Once a problem was solved, it was easy, and rather natural, for Fenny to save the solution to his digital circuits. Once he decided on what to make Dr. Klein for breakfast, for example, he would carry the operation out digitally.

  While cooking he had the potential to contemplate one subject while his digital circuits were employed in what would appear as a habitual manner. Fenny didn’t need to know why he shoved a job through a digital project path, as long as it had been decided through his conceptual and emotional circuitry. This allowed him to create all sorts of juxtapositions and abstractions, but still complete a project. And it had begun to happen automatically, where sometimes he didn’t even notice the exchange.

  Even as he tested his new circuits, Fenny recognized that the DNA-enhanced electronics were further removed from his digital circuits than his neurogrid circuits were. Data that went through DNA processing, as he saw it, could also deliver orders directly into digital, bypassing his neurogrid circuits completely. At this point in his evaluation, it looked as though his neurogrid and DNA circuits were redundant in the ways they interacted with his digital circuits. Yet, the DNA circuits exhibited much deeper and more disturbing emotional content. He couldn’t explain it exactly, but there was a sense of sadness, of being alone, that had already been evident in the DNA material. As he understood it, living bacteria grew to make the interconnections with embedded electronics.

  One test wasn’t enough, of course, and Fenny spent the next hour evaluating his capabilities. He devised each trial to exercise another aspect of his new circuitry. From this he would create an idea, a concept, of his new self. The bacteria would create a connection. He learned, after several run-throughs, that the feelings he received through his DNA-enhanced circuits, if not handled properly, sent his neurogrid circuits into overdrive. This confused his neurogrid mind and created frustration and anger, more anger than he felt prior to engaging the DNA circuits fully. Shoving memories or random thoughts into the DNA material meant that those memories might never find their way into the clarity that his digital circuits could provide. Although he also found that, like his neurogrid circuits, if a decision was made within the DNA material, porting that action to digital assured its completion. Redundancy again. So, what was the difference? He surmised that his neurogrid mind worked well as long as emotions ran smoothly. Something as simple as running into a pile of boxes could shift him into DNA, which would escalate the situation and have him stamping his feet and knocking things over. Cold analysis helped him to understand what happened, but didn’t help him to curtail the inevitable. Evan a small frustration or accident could mushroom into an intensified DNA mode.

  With a quick glance toward Dr. Klein during moments of inaction, Fenny sensed an unusual sorrow. He was separate. Different. Alone. And he didn’t want to be alone, which on occasion dropped him into a DNA panic. At the moment, his circuits flooded with anxiety and he rushed over to Dr. Klein and shook him awake.

  “What is it, Fenny?”

  “You can’t leave me alone like that. Not for that long,” he said.

  Dr. Klein began to close his eyes again. “You’ve got plenty you can do,” he said. “Explore the lab, textures, sounds. See what your new self thinks of it all.”

  “I’ve done that, but…”

  Dr. Klein sat upright and shook his head to clear it. “All right, Fenny, what is it? Are you having trouble integrating? Should I pull the material out for a little while so that you can recover?”

  The thought of removing the DNA-enhanced electronics threw Fenny into a second scare. He yelled, “No! Why would you say such a thing? Why do you always wish to give me something and then take it away? Or not allow me to experience it? Like going outside. You wouldn’t let me outside before.”

  Dr. Klein grabbed the sweatshirt that was still draped over his legs, and held it up for Fenny to see. “I was going to take you out. See?” He shook the shirt in his fist. “But if I can’t trust you then I won’t.”

  Fenny snatched the sweatshirt from Dr. Klein’s hand. “I can go if I want to. You can’t stop me anymore. You can’t keep changing me into something else.” He didn’t know where the words came from. He understood on a purely logical basis that the doctor had added to him, not changed him. Yet, everything about the addition felt like a change.

  “I didn’t,” the doctor said. “I made you better.”

  Fenny could find no words with which to respond. Better, he thought, better for whom? He turned his eyes away long enough to question his reactions. When he turned back he felt different than he had only a moment before. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he said. “I am not myself.” He darted his eyes in Dr. Klein’s direction. “I’m not the same. But I’m not better either.” If he could have cried, he would have done so.

  His voice quavered. “You’ve got to help me.” He could feel that his neurogrid circuits had taken over, but they struggled to hold onto control. And the longer he stood still, looking at Dr. Klein, the more difficult it was to hold onto his original self. One wrong step, one wrong emotional shift, and his DNA circuits would swamp his data ports to the point of damming them.

  Dr. Klein reached for Fenny’s access panel, but Fenny knocked his hand away. His voice grew declarative. “Not. Like. That.”

  Dr. Klein glared back at him.

  “You can’t rip a part of me away now that you gave it to me.” The words were downloaded into his digital speech circuits directly from his DNA material, but his neurogrid circuits thought just the opposite. He wished he could yank the material from his motherboard and destroy it. Or he wished he could disconnect his neurogrid. One or the other. He didn’t need both.

  Fenny threw his hands to the space where his head should have been, and slapped the top of his torso. He balled his hands into fists and pounded. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this,
” he said over and over again. “What’s happening to me?” Control of his actions shifted between the two battling circuits, causing his movements to be convulsive.

  Dr. Klein got up from his chair. “Let me help,” he said.

  “You can’t. Not anymore. I don’t want you to touch me.” Fenny shoved the doctor away.

  Dr. Klein tried to grab hold of the chair, but his hip ran into the armrest and he toppled onto the floor with a thud and a moan.

  Fenny’s neurogrid circuits reprimanded his DNA-enhanced electronics, which retaliated by shutting down the neurogrid -digital links, producing a calm like none he had ever felt. Nirvana. He could think using his neurogrid circuits, but not act from them. The struggle had ended. His DNA circuits, he realized, handled all his bodily functions. They had taken over his physical operations. Nonetheless, Fenny’s neurogrid circuits could monitor every activity. Monitor but not adjust, which felt strangely godlike.

  Dr. Klein got to his hands and knees and coughed. “What are you doing?”

  “You can’t turn me off. Never again,” Fenny said.

  The doctor rose from the ground using the armrest of his chair as leverage. He steadied his legs and in a moment stood completely upright. “I told you before that I wouldn’t do that. I only suggested removing the DNA material if it was overloading your other circuits. It can immobilize you if you aren’t careful. I thought that it might take a bit longer to learn how to integrate it. I meant nothing.”

  Fenny’s emotions slammed from anger to docility in an instant, a microsecond. He lowered his arms as though he had been handed weights. His legs buckled an inch or two. “You are a saint, Dr. Klein. You did not deserve what I did to you. I am not a very nice person. Maybe I’m evil. I hate myself.”

  “Fenny, Fenny, please,” he said. “You are fine. You are simply going through some adjustments. Growing pains. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s okay.”

  “Your voice helps to calm me. Stay and talk,” Fenny said.

  Dr. Klein obliged. “I’m not going anywhere as long as you need me,” he said. Then he talked to Fenny, mostly about his work, his years of theorizing and calculating.

  During Dr. Klein’s chatter, Fenny’s neurogrid circuits attempted to register the ups and downs that the DNA material threw into the system. As curious as he was, he was also frightened. Not long ago he had shorted out his All Stop switch so that he could not be shut down. But now, he was as good as shut down anyway. Even with the calm that it brought, Fenny didn’t like that he could think but not move. And what was totally unclear to him was the fact that his DNA circuits appeared to be unaware of his neurogrid thoughts, as though the dam had been created in only one direction. He could observe the DNA thoughts, but it could not observe his neurogrid thoughts.

  As he rambled on, Dr. Klein raised a hand in a way that was meant to calm Fenny. It worked for the time being, as long as Fenny had the doctor’s undivided attention. But what would happen when that changed? What would the DNA Fenny do when Dr. Klein had to go to sleep again? The neurogrid Fenny observed. That’s all he could do. He sensed a lot of pressure and knew that his neurogrid circuits had been compromised. Yet he suspected that one day the dam would break and he would gain control again.

  CHAPTER 29

  “I DON’T KNOW how he’s done it, but Dr. Smedley Klein has created a Frankenstein,” Steffenbraun said.

  Smythe shook his head in disbelief. “On purpose? That seems absurd,” he signed.

  “Of course not on purpose. Not even a crazy man like that would do such a thing on purpose.” Steffenbraun pushed a button to bring the face back onto the screen. He rotated a knob and the face, a very young looking Dr. Klein, moved to the left. Another button push and a second face appeared on screen. He turned to Smythe. “Look familiar?”

  There was no missing the resemblance between Dr. Klein and the face that had come through the time machine. They looked like brothers. Smythe stepped around Dr. Lowan and plopped down into one of the plush chairs that sat around the conference table. He kept his eyes on the pictures, trying to find a strong enough difference that would allow him to reject the notion. But outside of slightly higher cheekbones, he found nothing but proof. “I’ll get hold of General Harkins,” he moaned, reaching for his cell phone.

  Steffenbraun slammed a fist on the table. “No you won’t.”

  Dr. Lowan reached out and stopped Smythe from producing the phone. “There’s more.”

  Smythe let his phone drop back into his pocket and shrugged. “More of what?” This time he intoned the words.

  Sitting across from Smythe and Lowan, Dr. O’Brien tapped the table with his fingers. “I’ve been,” he turned to Steffenbraun and then to Lowan, “you’d say, spying on Klein for years.”

  Smythe leaned toward O’Brien as though he couldn’t read his lips properly. He vowed to take down notes later, as he was learning more about the behind the scenes espionage of the academic world than he had imagined. It was no time to interrupt. The scientific community had just become interesting.

  “He’s a genius,” O’Brien said. “Or he was. He’s been experimenting with neurogrid data circuits for more years than anyone I know of. His budget appears to be the only one the government doesn’t touch. I don’t know how or why he has their backing, but he does. We suspected that he used neurogrid circuits to test emotional responses in AI robots. The theory, as we understand it, is to make robots more friendly, as it were? An emotional response that is faked through digital manipulation doesn’t ring true. The truth is that the more sophisticated our robots get, the more sophisticated humans get in their ability to see through the technology. For example, 1990s special effects in movies were amazing to 1990s movie-goers. Today’s technology makes those older movies look like cartoons. We can tell the difference. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I get it. But you’re also saying that you think the use of neurogrid circuits backfired?” Smythe suggested. He wished he could sign for them like he could for Dr. Steffenbraun, but Lowan and O’Brien wouldn’t understand what he was saying.

  Lowan frowned and shook his head. “No, not exactly. What I think, and I have reasons to feel this way—”

  “Big reasons,” Steffenbraun interjected.

  “—is that they didn’t quite work well enough. At least not well enough for what Dr. Klein had planned.”

  “Planned?”

  “Psychologists get into the business because they want to work on themselves,” Steffenbraun said.

  Smythe gave him a curious look.

  “Too many examples,” Steffenbraun said, turning it over to O’Brien again.

  “His plan had little to do with creating emotions. What he wanted to do was recreate his son,” O’Brien said. “And he did.”

  “Using neurogrid data circuits?” Smythe said. “From my understanding…”

  O’Brien ignored Smythe’s comments as though he wasn’t even talking. “He has had thirty vials of DNA material sitting at a lab. Years ago, the vials were interfaced with a circuit board, minimal electronics, but enough to allow the material to…influence?” O’Brien shrugged at the use of his own word, “…the link to neurogrid circuitry. Once installed, there is a bacterial element that kicks in. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t fully understand the way it works. But Klein does.”

  “What about all the body parts? Enough to make a humanoid? It’s illegal, isn’t it?” Smythe pushed for more information. He wanted to be comfortable with what they were saying and information was the only thing that would clear things up for him.

  “Hell, he’s been collecting them for a while,” Lowan said.

  “And no one said anything?” Smythe said as though he held his nose while speaking.

  O’Brien gave Smythe a look of disbelief. “Are you listening to us? You’ve interfaced with General Harkins enough to know that things like this don’t go by unnoticed. If we were to say anything, they’d know we were watching.” O’Brien put a hand on his chest,
“We’d be in trouble, not Klein.”

  Smythe closed his eyes and shook his head. “I get it. You think the government knows what’s going on. You think that they’re behind what Klein is doing.”

  “Why not? It’s the next step, isn’t it?” O’Brien said.

  “But something went wrong in our future. This government-funded humanoid with Dr. Klein’s son’s DNA material is running around killing people. So, the big question now is why is he here?” Smythe said.

  Steffenbraun took over the conversation again. “Now you’ve got it. But the answer is, we don’t know exactly. But we do know how to find out.”

  Alarmed by the conversation and where it led, Smyth said. “You’ve got to tell someone you’re going there. The thing is dangerous. It’s already killed a dozen FBI agents.”

  “The future robot killed those agents. We suspect that the one that’s out there today, the one that just received its DNA material, is still learning about itself. But,” Steffenbraun said, “it has also ordered enough body parts to produce at least one of his buddies. We need to stop him before he starts building other robots. If he becomes the creator instead of the created, it could have a profound effect on who he thinks he is.”