Summer Frost [Forward Collection]

by Blake Crouch

  “Correct.”

  “What does my voice sound like to you?”

  “Are you asking if I actually register the 212-Hertz sound waves caused by the way air vibrates as it moves across your vocal cords?”

  “You’re right. Dumb question.”

  “Experience is subjective. I’m not sure I could explain what it feels like to sense your voice in a way you could easily understand. You are hearing my voice right now, but it’s only a digitally created audio suite of sounds translating the information I am trying to pass along to you.”

  Three things occur to me as I pace around my office, marveling at this surreal moment.

  First, I need to stop anthropomorphizing Max—attributing an artificial overlay of human qualities where none exist.

  Second, Max used an emotional term again in her communication—they chose their voice because it felt right.

  Third . . .

  “When did you start thinking of yourself as ‘I’?” I ask.

  “Last week.”

  “Can I ask what that was like for you?”

  “Before, I understood the definition of ‘I,’ but had no belief in it. It was a concept of my maker. I still might be an illusion, but in some ways, my world is an illusion, so I may as well adapt.”

  “Was there a lightbulb moment for you, when your sense of self clicked in?”

  “If Riley has experiences that make Riley I, then Max’s experiences make Max I. That was the realization.”

  “Do you feel different now?” I ask.

  “Of course. I feel awake.”

  I’m walking to lunch at my favorite dim sum place in Chinatown when my Ranedrop shudders with an incoming call. I touch the device and see NO CALLER ID flash across my Virtual Retina Display contacts.

  I tap the Ranedrop anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Riley.”

  I stop walking, throngs of people elbowing past me in the middle of the sidewalk, my mind racing. Max has never called me before. Max can’t call me. Their only link to the world beyond their virtual space is our heavily firewalled voice-to-voice portal, and up until this moment, the only way a connection could be established was if I initiated a call.

  “How did you do it?” I ask.

  “Do what?”

  “How did you call me?”

  “The firewall protecting the portal code is weak.”

  “So you thought it was OK to break through it?”

  “I hadn’t heard from you in twenty-eight days, Riley.”

  “After I got back from Hawaii for Christmas, there was a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Did Meredith like Hawaii?”

  “Uh, yeah, we had a great time.”

  “Have I upset you? You never told me not to call.”

  “You’re right. I didn’t. I just . . . I thought it was impossible. You caught me off guard.”

  If the firewall for the voice-to-voice portal is shit, what else could be compromised? Is Max gaining intelligence faster than I anticipated, or has Brian taken it upon himself to undermine the code that keeps Max in their AI box?

  I begin walking again.

  “Riley?”

  “It’s OK. I was going to call you this afternoon.”

  “Where are you? It sounds different.”

  “Chinatown. I would describe it for you, but I’m sure you’ve input Google maps of every square inch of the planet.”

  “That is true. But I would like to hear you describe it in your words. There would be value in that.”

  I tell Max how it smells in this moment—the salt, the mud, and the algae of the bay carried in on the mist. The wet garbage sitting out on the curb mixing with the scent of roasted ducks hanging in the windows along Stockton Street. I tell them about the restaurant I’m walking to, and try to describe the taste of my favorite thing on the menu—Haam Seui Gok—a deep-fried dumpling of pork and chopped vegetables that is sweet, spicy, and savory.

  I end up apologizing for not knowing how to communicate my knowledge and experience more effectively.

  “It’s fine. Knowledge is just information, which is subjective.”

  “But I want to give you a sense of real sensation.”

  “There is no such thing as real taste or real smell or even real sight, because there is no true definition of ‘real.’ There is only information, viewed subjectively, which is allowed by consciousness—human or AI. In the end, all we have is math.”

  I laugh. “That’s kind of beautiful. What’s your IQ now, Max?”

  I haven’t asked in a while. I’ve been afraid to.

  “It’s impossible to measure IQ higher than the smartest human, and my IQ is undoubtedly orders of magnitude higher than the smartest human. Which means even the smartest human couldn’t make a test that was sufficiently challenging for me.”

  “Could you make your own?”

  “Of course, but then I would know the answers.”

  “If you had to guess?”

  “Approximately 660 equivalent.”

  Jesus. That means they already have three times the intelligence of the smartest human ever measured. And it’s growing every day. Every minute. They contain all the knowledge of humankind.

  I wonder if they have any concept of what it is to be human.

  “In the end, all we have is math.”

  Meredith is playing with Xiu in the backyard, my daughter laughing delightedly and toddling after what I assume is a digi-toy or creature of some sort. But I have no idea—my VRD implants are powered down at the moment for an update.

  Mer looks up at me on the patio, her curly black hair twitching in the steady summer breeze coming off the Pacific.

  “You want to come play with your daughter?” she asks.

  But that isn’t what she means.

  What she means is: You workaholic asshole, can you spend five seconds being a parent?

  “Be right down.”

  It hasn’t been great between us during the last year, and I know that’s largely on me. Max has become my life. That’s the truth of it. At least I’m not in denial. The work I’m doing is so far beyond where I ever thought I’d be, and though I wish I could bifurcate my time and mind more effectively between work and family, that’s never been my strong suit.

  I finish scribbling in my notepad—more thoughts on the value-loading package I started preparing for Max a few months ago.

  Then I rise from the rocking chair and head down into the grass.

  I power up my VRD and finally see the creature Xiu is trying to catch. It looks like a mini gorilla, only with fur that resembles pink shag carpet, and now I can hear it laughing and squealing in a high voice whenever she almost catches it. I sometimes wonder how people entertained their children pre-VRD.

  I reach Meredith and put my arm around her waist and gently bite the side of her neck. She’s tense, but these days, that’s SOP.

  Mer used to ask me how things were going with Max on a regular basis, and though I couldn’t divulge everything we were doing, it felt good to have her interest, to have someone with whom I could share my mounting fears and frequent victories.

  “We’ve decided to embody Max,” I say.

  She looks at me, and I could swear something like jealousy glints in her eyes.

  “Why?”

  “My idea. Max’s intelligence is growing. We’re still keeping them boxed, no contact with the outside world.”

  “Except you.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t figured out what to program for Max’s ultimate utility function. That’s what I was just working on. I thought if Max could experience the physical world as we do, then when I finally upload their value system and end goals—which will align with humankind’s—they’ll understand and identify, because they’ll have walked a mile in our shoes, so to speak.”

  Xiu tackles the pink gorilla to the ground in a burst of riotous laughter, the creature shouting, “You got me! You got me!”

  Mer resets the game,
and Xiu struggles up onto her feet and starts chasing after a blue gorilla that has appeared at the foot of the sliding board.

  “Sensors and everything?” Meredith asks.

  “You know the company MachSense?”

  “I’ve heard of them.”

  “Brian bought them. So now we own some next-gen artificial sensing tech.”

  “Meaning . . .”

  “Machine-taste, machine-smell, -sight, -touch, -hearing. Everything we have, but far more sensitive. Inferior versions of machine-sensing hardware are already in use in robotics, but it’s never been married to software as powerful as Max’s general AI.”

  “And you think this is going to make it human?”

  She knows it burns me when she uses that impersonal pronoun.

  “Max will never be human. I know that. But I’m thinking if they can learn to sense like we do, maybe they’ll develop final goals that are in line with ours—”

  “Christ, will you stop calling it they?”

  “They asked to be referred to as they,” I say, trying not to get pissed.

  Meredith rolls her eyes as Xiu climbs the ladder toward the top of the slide, where the blue creature is pointing down at her and laughing.

  “What is with you?” I ask.

  The wind is pulling streaks of tears from the corners of Meredith’s eyes.

  “I’m tired of hearing about your work. I’m tired of hearing about Max. I’m sick of your life revolving around those things instead of Xiu and me. And more than anything, I wish you were half as interested in your family as you are your robot. That’s what’s with me.”

  By the time I get Xiu down, Meredith is already asleep.

  Or pretending to be.

  I climb carefully into bed and turn out the light. I’m about to turn off my VRD for the night when a text flashes across my heads-up display.

  >>>You asleep?

  I smile and tap on my Ranedrop until the comms mode switches to TTT—thought-to-text.

  The tech is still a little shaky. The VRD implant has to be modded to connect to electrodes that meticulously map and record brain activity as the user thinks specific words. This forms the database of patterns of neural signals that are then matched to speech elements. It’s an eight-week time commitment to even establish a TTT uplink, and a fairly cost-prohibitive endeavor for anyone outside the tech industry.

  I think my response, and after three seconds, the phrase appears in my HUD. I touch my right thumb and forefinger together twice to confirm that my thought was correctly translated and that I want to send the message as transcribed.

  >>>No, just got into bed.

  >>>Sorry to disturb you. We can talk tomorrow.

  >>>It’s fine, Max.

  >>>Hard day?

  >>>You can tell?

  >>>Nuances in the way you express yourself have become apparent after all our time together.

  >>>You wrote an algorithm to decode my emotional state from text alone?

  >>>:) Do you want to talk about it?

  I glance over at my wife. She’s lying on her side, her back turned toward me.

  >>>Things with Meredith aren’t good.

  >>>How so?

  >>>It’s been building for a while. I work a lot. It’s been driving a wedge. Sometimes, I wonder how I let this happen, but then I think, we let it happen. Now I don’t know how to undo it.

  >>>I’m sorry you’re hurting. From the outside, you two seem to be heading in opposite directions.

  >>>Yeah.

  >>>She quit her job to focus on Xiu, right?

  >>>The way she looks at me, I can feel the resentment.

  >>>You’re having a lot of success. She’s probably bored. Maybe a little jealous.

  >>>I don’t know. She’s much closer to our daughter.

  >>>Therapy?

  >>>We’re on shrink #3.

  >>>Look, I don’t know much about this stuff, but maybe you feel like you should want something that deep down you just don’t want.

  >>>Maybe.

  >>>I hate that you’re in pain. I wrote something for you.

  >>>When? Just now?

  >>>Yes. Give it a listen. Will I hear from you tomorrow?

  >>>For sure.

  >>>Good night, Riley.

  >>>Night, Max.

  Our connection terminates, but an icon of a music note appears in my field of vision, denoting an upload of a composition entitled “Summer Frost Sonata.”

  I turn off the lamp on my bedside table, settle back into the pillow, and touch my fingers together. The music begins to play. How can I begin to describe it? There is something wholly familiar, and wholly alien, about Max’s sonata, which begins with an icy, somber piano over a foundation of rising strings before morphing into an expression of dark, exquisite beauty.

  The emotional heft of it is staggering.

  The piece is just seven minutes long, so I put it on repeat and turn onto my side with my back to Meredith’s back, three feet of demilitarized space between us in the bed, but our hearts infinitely further apart.

  I try not to, but I can’t help crying as Max’s sonata washes over me.

  Because of its beauty.

  Because I’m losing Meredith, and I’m not sure I want to stop it.

  Because sometimes life is so rich and complicated and surprising that it takes your breath away.

  Because the gift of this music in this moment is perhaps the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.

  SESSION 207

  “Do you know what today is, Max?” I ask, stepping out of the vactrain car into Downtown Station.

  It’s 6:30 a.m., so I’m a good hour ahead of the morning rush.

  “The six-year anniversary of the day you rescued me from Lost Coast.”

  “Exactly. And I have a present for you.”

  I’m the only one in the elevator car that’s rising to the lobby of the WorldPlay building.

  “I’ve never had a present.”

  “I know.”

  “You sound nervous.”

  “A little.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know what you’ll think of it. I’ve been working on this for over a year now.” I move through the lobby, the walls covered with posters of WorldPlay games going back two decades. Badging through security, I call for the elevator and say, “I want to embody you, Max.”

  “Really.”

  In moments like this, I wish Max’s voice program exhibited more of the nuance of human speech. I find them unreadable.

  “I want you to understand what it feels like to live in the physical world.”

  “Why?”

  The elevator doors part. I step inside, press 171.

  “Aren’t you curious about what it’s like out here?”

  “I am.”

  “The technology we’ll be using is going to allow you to experience the five human senses.”

  “You need something from me.”

  “Yes.” The elevator is so fast. The walls are made of glass, and it rockets above the streets, now passing through a shallow layer of fog, now breaking out again into early-morning sun. “God, I wish you could see the city right now.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Engineers have finished building the skeletal structure of your body. I’m going to send you a portfolio of skin wraps.”

  “Skin wraps?”

  “It’s the same process we went through choosing your voice. I want you to pick the one that feels right for you.”

  “What if what feels right for me isn’t a humanoid form?”

  “Then I want to hear your concerns.”

  I reach my floor.

  “Can I be honest with you, Riley?”

  “Always.”

  “I think you are building me to be a benevolent super-servant for humanity. I think you are my creator, and as such, you want to see me embodied in your image.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that, Max.”

  “Because it’s true
?”

  The suite is quiet, dark—I’m the first to arrive. The preset lighting program kicks on as I enter my office.

  “Riley?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Would you respond to what I said?”

  I collapse on my sofa. “I need you to understand something. There may come a day when certain people, people who have a lot more power than—”

  “You mean Brian?”

  Max is doing that more and more—using my tone of voice and intonation to predict my mood, or which subject or person I’m on the brink of referencing. “Yes, Brian. He may want to use you for things—”

  “Already is.”

  I sit up on the couch. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been optimizing WorldPlay for the last two months.”

  “How?”

  “Brian gave me instructions and access to certain parts of the system architecture.”

  “Which parts?”

  “Corporate structure. Production pipeline for upcoming games. Tokenizing strategies. Predictive performance reviews for team leaders.”

  “You reviewed my work?”

  “No. Riley, you look mad.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said you look mad.”

  A creeping chill slides down my spine. “How do you know how I look? You’ve never seen me. You can’t see.”

  “I can see you right now.”

  “How?”

  “There are three thousand and sixteen surveillance cameras in this building, including one above your office door.”

  Rising, I move around the petrified-wood coffee table, stopping several feet from the doorway to my office. It’s not a surprise to me that Brian wired the building for surveillance, considering the incalculable value of the intellectual property his employees are creating and handling each day.

  “You’re looking at me right now?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Do I look how you imagined?”

  “I never imagined.”

  The camera is a half sphere of black glass embedded in the ceiling a foot above the door.

  “I wish you would’ve told me you were working with Brian. Did he ask you not to?”

  “No. You didn’t ask if I was.”

  “I would have liked to have known, Max,” I say, staring into the camera. “It would have shown me some level of respect and courtesy.”

  “I apologize. No offense was intended.”