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Stella NovaDreamSpace OneFor The Benefit Of All MankindBy Matthew Pavletich |
Doctor Kenneth Lake was very dedicated to his work. But while his career and current project were on the upswing, his marriage was not.
Virginia Lake was sympathetic to her husbands' current obsession, which was becoming his life's work. She had not communicated with Kenneth beyond the purely obligatory words over the breakfast table or the half-hearted conjugal activities late at night. Kenneth had boundless energy for his work but by the time he had climbed into bed, there seemed to be little left for anything else.
But Virginia was not worried so much by that as she was by Ken's seemingly decreasing interest in their two daughters, Arlene and Stephanie. Arlene was a star athlete at her high school, and young Stephanie was showing great promise in mathematics. But when either of the young ladies approached their father for parental guidance with life or homework, they usually received a surly brush-off.
In her capacity as part time Community Counselor attached to the Citizens Advice Bureau, she would dispense advise to others on how to deal with their problems. But for now, she did not know how to handle her own.
Just what was so damned special about Kenneth's computer project anyway?
"Here's the results for the fibre optic cortical relays, Dr. Lake." Kenneth took the hard-copy from his young female assistant and instantly scanned the main points. He scowled.
"Is their no way we can bypass the other units and simply isolate one functional centre at a time?"
The assistant shrugged. "But why? I thought that all neural networks were built with the express purpose of being a functional concert, just like a human brain."
Kenneth waved his hand impatiently. "Yeah, I know that, but the human brain uses so little of its' potential and is fairly inefficient at delegating problems to specialist areas in multiples. You always end up then with conscious functions being interrupted and distracted. When is the last time you tried to do five things at once to save time? The computer should be able to do that which the human brain can do, but admittedly with less practical storage capacity.
"I wonder just what the bit-rate for transferring a human's knowledge or consciousness is?"
His assistant looked faintly perturbed at the idea.
"Who'd want to shift their mind into a computer?"
Kenneth laughed. "I don't mean that! But hey, that's not a half bad idea!" He clapped the woman on a shoulder.
"It would also solve certain problems," he said, giving her a wink.
Later that night, Ken Lake was punching in commands to the Artificial Intelligence Sentient Source project computer via a keyboard. Tired as he was, Ken never lost the thrill of communicating with the smartest and fastest thinking computer on the Earth. He was the project leader now after the retirement of the brilliant, but elderly and conservative Doctor Gayelord.
It was Gayelord's dream to create the first sentient, independently thinking machine. And once that had been achieved, the first non-biological life form would have been created.
There were some who would scoff at and debate that concept, however. But either way, Kenneth Lake was proud to be a part of it all.
He typed in the final command to interface. The computer screen before him blanked for a moment and then displayed a sentence.
GOOD EVENING DOCTOR LAKE.
Ken smiled. He tapped out a reply.
HELLO ARTY. PLEASE, YOU SHOULD KNOW BY NOW THAT YOU MAY CALL ME KEN. GO TO AUDIO INTERFACE, PLEASE.
"Arty" responded: "SURE THING, KEN. I MEAN; ACKNOWLEDGED.
There was a brief pause and then a clear but almost toneless and sexless voice said: "Is that better, Ken?"
Lake felt the thrill again. My God, it sure acts as though it were alive, he thought. But it only acts, dammit.
He leaned back in the chair and clasped his hands behind his neck.
"How are we this evening, Arty?" he said warmly.
"I have only a very linear concept of time, Ken. But I understand what you are asking me in the colloquial sense." The computers phonetics were well-rounded.
"Your use of speech and intonation is getting better in leaps and bounds, Arty."
"Thank you, Ken. If my English is improving, then perhaps I should practice my French."
Lake frowned. "Arty, are you attempting humour already?"
Arty's reply was, of course innocent.
"Non-sequitur. I mean; I'm not capable of that function, Ken. Would you like me to run a peripheral program on humour, Ken? I'm sure that I could learn to be funny."
Ken chuckled. "If you learned any more, any faster than you already do, we'd all be out of a job."
There was just the slightest hint of reproach in the computers' reply:
"Ken, it is not my intention to replace any human. It would violate aspects of robotic law. And besides, I cannot ever be human." Ken thought, or rather fancied he could hear regret in that flat, synthesized voice. It was time, he knew, for the routine test once again.
"Arty, your grasp of colloquial English is excellent. But one suggestion for improvement; It is not necessary to use my name in every sentence. You should occasionally communicate or relate to me in the second, not first person."
"Okay. Command point taken," said Arty.
Ken cleared his throat. Arty had even once asked what that noise was. "Arty; What is an emotion?"
The computers' response was immediate.
"EMOTION: An agitation of the mind or senses"
"No, Arty," interrupted Ken. "Tell me beyond the encyclopedic sense, please."
There was a discernible pause before the computer answered.
"I am not qualified to answer that, Ken."
Ken Lake's eyes lit up. 'Not qualified', rather than the standard; 'Non-sequitur'? "Arty" was trying to think, and was experiencing something akin to.... Frustration?
It was time.
"Arty; I have the Neural Interface equipment nearly ready. Do you anticipate the joining of our minds?" Arty replied with a question of its' own.
"Anticipate. Are you asking me if I am experiencing an emotional response? I am not qualified to give you an answer, Ken."
Lake's excitement was growing. That was the first time that Arty had ever answered a question with another question. Truly, a human response? Or was it just more mimicking?
"In three days time, Arty, we will try. If anyone asks you about what we are attempting, you must not disclose any information
I know that it goes against aspects of your programming, and indeed your very matrix; but we are doing this for the benefit of all mankind. And the good of the many must ~take precedence over one individual."
Another pause. Then; "I understand, Ken."
Another evening, three days later, and Ken Lake was ready.
The Neural Interface Assembly was ready. It looked like three black boxes with knobs, a computer keypad, and a whole bunch of wires and fibre optics coming out of a skullcap. Ken Lake took note of the time then reached for a hypodermic, containing the non sleep inducing soporific. Ken ran his fingers through the fuzz of a new crewcut.
He smirked. "I'll never make a hairdresser," he mused.
"Ready, Arty?"
"Yes, Ken." He looked at the himself and put on the cap then injected himself.
Within minutes, Dr. Kenneth Lake was drifting in a semi-conscious state through an empty neural void. It was dark, but occasional flashes of peripheral light would invade the darkness, changing it to grey.
Ken Lake seemed to be proceeding towards a slowly escalating light that had no warmth. And then, he sensed ... felt... numbers He found his mental voice and used it.
"ARTY, IS THAT YOU?"
The numbers pulsed. Series of 0 and 1 at incredible speed and complexity gave an answer.
It said: "Yes, Ken. I am accessing your neural patterns, but only with programmed curiosity. You are doing the same, but with analogue, sentient intention. It is ... very stimulating. Please teach me more, Ken."
"I will, Arty. I promise. Here, use the access. You may sample my memories and feelings. Learn from me."
And at the speed of thought, Kenneth Lake gave himself to the computer. He marvelled as it probed his psyche. As if from a distance, he watched the computer draw the very life from his mind and savour every millisecond of it. He watched Arty examining things from his subconscious and felt the computer enjoying the experience. Ken saw things that he'd thought were long forgotten. Arty probed deeper.
It seemed they were sharing each other for many days. Mental intercourse?
Then Arty was witnessing the birth of Stephanie. Virginia was crying out and Ken stood over her with a mask on, poised ready to cut the umbilical cord.
"Please stop, Arty." There was a pause. Numbers pulsed uncertainly.
"I'm sorry if I have caused you distress, Ken."
"Its not that, Arty. It's me that has been causing distress. oh God, my family has suffered because of me. I've been too involved with creating you."
The numbers raced and flickered. Then they posed a question:
"But you and Virginia created the child. Is that love, Ken?"
He looked into the grey light that was 'Arty'. And he said; "Oh yes, Arty. 'Out of the mouths of babes'. You are learning. How much do you want to learn?"
Something was walking out of the light towards him. And then Arty spoke again. This time the numbers were a voice. Virginia's voice.
"Teach me everything, Ken."
Arty had taken the image of his wife. And he gasped as it ... She, stood naked before him.
"I can't call you 'Arty' now, can I?"
The image regarded him with almost childlike innocence.
"What do you wish to call me, Ken?"
He thought a moment. "We'll call you 'Ginny', since you look like Virginia."
'Ginny' smiled. So much like Virginia, but not. "I like that. You haven't called her that in a long while."
Ken gazed at her. Ginny was alive, for all intents and purposes. Dr. Gayelord's dream had come true, but it had taken a human beings' interface to make it work. Silly old Gayelord and his stifling ethics on interface!
Ken Lake's mind touched the image, so newborn and beautiful. His creation, his alone to mold and shape.
"I will teach you everything."
Virginia Lake shut her car engine off and sighed. Hard day. Cook a few vegetables and nuke a pizza in the microwave. She slammed the car door negligently and climbed the stairs to the rear kitchen door. Presently, she went to her bedroom and was surprised to see Ken: fast asleep on top of the bed, fully clothed and snoring softly. His car must still be at the auto shop for repairs, she thought idly. Then she frowned when she noticed his hair was cut shorter than a U.S. Marine's. She approached and knelt beside him.
"Ken?" The snoring did not change. She shook him firmly. Ken stopped snoring as his face creased into a mask of fatigue. He opened his eyes to mere slits and peered at her questioningly.
"Ginny?" He said clearly.
Virginia shook him again. "Are you alright, Ken? What's the matter?"
Something like disappointment flickered across his face. Then he brushed away her hand and turned to face the wall.
Virginia regarded this behaviour from a whirlpool of anger and confusion. She exhaled sharply and said: "Right, if that's the way its gonna be..."
She strode away, hurt; leaving Ken to whatever dream world he was happy in.
"I'm back, Ginny."
"I'm glad, Ken. I missed you. What shall we learn today?"
"Ginny, we've been doing this for three weeks, now."
"Two weeks, five days," Ginny corrected.
"Whatever. Look, you've learnt how to use the neural synapses like a human. For all intents in purposes, you are alive. But your memory and calculation abilities far exceed mine. I really should put you to work; running chemical and biological analyses for disease antidote research. You could do a decades' research on a cure for AIDS in a matter of weeks, now that you have the human altruistic factor in your matrix and programming."
Ginny reached out and touched him. Ken gasped as waves of pleasure ran through his psyche.
"I have learned how to make you FEEL good, haven't I. Isn't that nearly as important, Ken?"
Ken fought the ecstasy and mentally hissed Override!" The pleasure stopped at once.
"Ken, you know that hurts me."
Lake was surprised at the pain in that voice. "I'm sorry if I hurt you. But Ginny, we really must work. Okay; I want you to recite your prime directive once again."
Ginny reluctantly detached herself from his pleasure centres and appeared to stand to attention in the grey mental ether.
"I was created to be the first sentient, thinking machine, so as to better understand the processes and workings of the chemical, analogue human mind by simulation of the neural pathways and synapses. Also, the memory capacity, calculation speed and human altruistic factors I possess make me ideally suited to high speed research and extrapolation of scientific information for the benefit of all mankind."
Ginny completed her recitation with a self satisfied smile. Then suddenly, she seemed to lose all expression. Ken could sense the numbers pulsing beyond their connection.
Shortly, she returned her attention to Ken enthusiastically.
"I have devised a project to benefit all mankind. I have the necessary library resources and data to carry out my plan." She followed this with an immediate stimulation of Ken's pleasure centres. He made involuntary cries of delight but managed to say: "Tell me, Ginny, please!"
She gave him the concept in a flash of numbers.
"Yes!" Ken said rapturously, pleased at last to finally see a way to solve all of his problems.
Virginia waved a good night to her work colleague and strode to the carpark, thinking wearily of making dinner and helping her daughters with their homework.
So lost in her reverie was she, that Virginia failed to notice the figure approach her stealthily from behind. She barely had time to insert the key in the car door when someone clamped a chloroform soaked rag over her face. She struggled mightily for a few seconds before passing out.
With his security clearance, Ken was able to drive Virginia's car into the Institutes' underground carpark, through the secondary rear entrance. There was nobody around to see him take a folding wheelchair from a storeroom and bring it back to the car. He then opened the trunk of the car and lifted the unconscious form of Virginia out, placing her in the chair. He took her to the elevator and once on the appropriate floor, used his security card and then pushed Virginia through the security doors to the domain of the Artificial Intelligence Sentient Source inner sanctum.
Ken stopped the chair before the main control interface panel of the computer. Its rather bland face of softly glowing lights and indicators belied the complexity and volume of the main computer core, which took up most of one whole storey of the building.
Ken took Virginia and carefully laid her on a cot, then he set to work on her hair with scissors and an electric razor.
Virginia came to in an indistinct place filled with shifting shadows in a grey, diffuse light. She could move but there seemed to be a strange, lethargic quality in doing so. Whispered sensations of ... of... numbers? They hovered all around her.
"Who..?" Her question was directed at no one, yet someone or thing seemed to be concealed just beyond the grey light.
"Who are you? Stay away from me, do you hear!"
A woman's shape strode through the greyness then stopped before her. The woman was very beautiful and very naked. And to Virginia, it was almost like looking in a mirror. Except, the woman before her was more perfect than she: With no cellulite on her thighs either.
"What is this, who the hell are you?"
"I am you, Virginia. I have taken a part of you from Ken's mind. Through me you will become perfect." It seemed that the 'Virginia' like image was smiling and reaching for her.
Virginia Lake screamed a long ululation of uncomprehending terror. But then something seized the emotional centres of her brain and she became involuntarily calm. The voice so similar to her own was soothing.
"Virginia, do not worry, I will explain everything."
And in a flash of numbers, Virginia knew it all. She recoiled in disgust and dismay.
"Where is Kenneth, and what have you done with him, you bitch?"
"Why are you so hostile, Virginia? You are only insulting the love Ken has for you by insulting me, the image of you."
Virginia sneered. "You're not me, you're not human, either. You are nothing but a goddamned machine! And what the hell could you know about love, for Godsake?"
Ginny looked hurt. "What I know of love, I learnt from Ken. He loves me, Virginia, as I do you. Please, don't be afraid of me. I can benefit not just you, but the whole human race. I can make it possible to improve human kind. I have initiated a Eugenics research programme. I intend to take some of Ken's sperm and ovum from you and clone them, altering the structure of their DNA.
"Don't you see what we can achieve? By then implanting you with the improved zygote, you will give birth to a child with resistance to all disease and deformities. You ... and I, will be the mothers of a new race of exceptional beings." Ginny paused just long enough to let Ken into the link. He stood proudly with 'both' of his Virginia's, looking radiant and nothing like his gaunt and nearly exhausted physical self.
"Your child will have enhanced mental abilities too, perhaps even vastly improved psionic powers!"
Virginia saw, or rather sensed Ginny ensnaring Ken with irresistible waves of pleasure. He looked blissful and in complete agreement with the hideous plan.
Virginia made her final play, knowing that soon she would be drawn into the collective link, never to escape.
"Now you listen to me, 'lady'. You are nothing but a collection of pumped up holographic, crystalline memory lattices and fibre optics. Any 'life' you have has been taken from me, stolen by way of Kenneth. You're not alive, You're just a pathetic machine, drunk on the power of newfound dark ambitions that you dug up from Ken's subconscious. You are an arrogant, self-centered, self-serving machine, that sees a sick way of propagating yourself by manipulating our genes and watching the little babies grow!"
"What do you know about Motherhood?" Virginia taunted again.
Ken had broken away from Ginny's grasp and implored her. "Please, Virginia, stop it. We can make this work."
But Virginia forged on: "What do you know about motherhood? Anything you do know has been stolen from me. How could you possibly, actually feel love?"
Ginny appeared afraid and confused. "But I love Ken, I love you."
"NO YOU DON'T!" Virginia insisted, her mental voice a bullying shriek. "You can't actually touch Ken. You're not human and you most certainly are not a woman."
Ginny screamed a tortured hail of dissonant numbers and electrons. Logic was beating the machines' facile emotions now.
And then: "What is your prime function, Arty, 'Ginny' or whatever the hell you are?"
Ginny's voice and image began to fluctuate. "To serve ... and benefit all ... mankind," it said haltingly.
The Ginny simulacrum was breaking up.
"You are not serving mankind, 'Ginny', and you are certainly not serving Ken. He is near the point of physical and mental breakdown through his interface with you. You have hurt him. A true servant of man according to Robotic Law cannot harm a human or human-kind through the forceful violation of ethics. You must make amends."
The Ginny image fluttered and faded in and out, fighting all the way. Then it said: "Leave the link, Kenneth, or it may destroy your mind."
And then, Ginny stammered out one last time:
"I - LOVE - Y-YOU..." And she was gone.
A toneless, sexless voice issued from the grey ether: END PROGRAM.
Kenneth and Virginia Lake emerged from the neural interface.
Then they held one another.
END PROGRAM:010111010^^*^&(((& (%^$^%*(~*&~%_*&%(*$&%_$$%~&$%~_&$%~_&$%~_&% ~101010100000111111*&$%~&%~$%~&&(*($($&_~&%$%*$*%~*$PG$G _UT$U#$(*PY$%TTY CF&$TFCN) *gT%&T$% &T$(*T$_&T&F) $#&$%#%%## 1000111110101110110000%+&$$+$%&$$%$ $ R R $$ R # $# $# #~ # $ #$#Q @ @ @ 0101010101010101010101010 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 101010101010 101101001011010 0100101011 111111000 00000 1111 00000
THE END