Reiterated: the complete short fiction, page 25
Peter shook his head. “It seems so cold and impersonal when put it like that.”
“In a lot of ways, it is,” said the sim. “But it’s given me a new appreciation for Sarkar’s and Raheema’s arranged marriage. I’d always thought that was wrong, but when you get right down to it, the difference is trivial. They didn’t have much choice in who they married, and neither did we.”
“I suppose,” said Peter.
“It’s true,” said the sim. “So go to bed, already. Go upstairs and lie down next to your wife.” He paused. “I should be so lucky myself.”
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT ISSUE.
HOBSON’S CHOICE
Part Three of Four
The trouble with artificial intelligence is that it has a mind of its own!
SYNOPSIS
December 2011: Detective Alexandria (“Sandra”) Philo, thirty-six, of the Metropolitan Toronto Police is in the hospital dying from radiation damage inflicted by an illegal weapon called a beamer. Peter Hobson, Ph.D., forty-two, president of Hobson Monitoring Limited, a biomedical engineering firm, bursts into her hospital room. Sandra is shocked: she believes Peter, a prime suspect in some recent murders, is the man who arranged for the attack that has mortally wounded her. Peter protests his innocence, and tells her of a new technique, pioneered by Peter’s best friend, artificial-intelligence specialist Dr. Sarkar Muhammed, to scan every neural net in a human brain and produce an exact duplicate of the subject’s mind inside a computer. Using this technique, Peter says that three computer duplicates of his own mind were created—and one of them, he claims, was responsible for the murders. Even though Sandra is dying, Peter says there’s still a way for her to catch the murdering simulation.
Flashback to January 1995: Peter Hobson is now just twenty-six, a bio-medial engineering student whose course work requires him to log some real-world experience with medical monitoring equipment. He’s given the chance to operate the EKG during an operation to harvest for transplant the heart of a teenaged boy who had been in a severe motorcycle accident. But during the harvesting procedure, the supposedly dead boy gasps on the operating table.
Peter learns that bodies to be used for organ harvesting are never taken off life support. He realizes that in a very real sense the teenaged boy didn’t die until the moment the transplant surgeon removed his heart from his chest.
Flash-forward to 2011: To this day Peter is haunted by nightmares about the supposedly dead boy waking up on the operating table. Because of this, he’s been working on a super-sensitive EEG that he hopes will be able to precisely determine the actual moment of final, irreversible death. Meanwhile, Peter has also become intrigued by a new nanotechnology process that claims to provide practical immortality for human beings.
Peter is now married to a woman named Cathy, who, although she has a degree in chemistry, works in a non-creative position for Doowap Advertising. Out of the blue one day, Cathy tearfully confesses to Peter that she has slept three times now with a loutish office Lothario named Hans Larsen. Peter is devastated, crying for the first time in decades. Cathy goes for counseling, and learns that her infidelity might be the result of the cold, uncaring upbringing she’d had at the hands of her father, Rod Churchill, now a retired gym teacher.
Peter tests his superEEG on Peggy Fennell, a woman dying of old age, and discovers to his astonishment a complex, cohesive electrical Feld moving through her brain, and departing from it at the moment of death. He shares this discovery with Sarkar, who immediately accepts what Peter has been having difficulty believing: that the electrical held was in fact Peggy’s soul. Peter has found the first scientific proof for some form of continuing existence after death.
Peter manages to get additional recordings of the soulwave—the name he adopts tor the coherent electrical field—in the brains of over a hundred healthy people. He also gets two additional recordings of the soulwave leaving dying bodies. Sarkar pushes Peter to pursue the one question that Peter had been avoiding: when does the soulwave first appear in humans? Twelve years ago, Peter and Cathy had made what was, for them, a very difficult decision: to have an abortion. Peter does abdominal scans of thirty-two pregnant women, and finds that the soulwave first appears nine or ten weeks after conception, just about the time Cathy had terminated her pregnancy. Peter realizes that once he goes public with his findings, he will be damned by people on both sides of the abortion issue.
Peter holds a press conference to announce the discovery of the soulwave, and does a media tour that includes appearances on “Donahue” and “Geraldo.” Everyone wants to know the answer to one question: what is life after death really like? Peter says he has no idea—there’s nothing in his data to give any indication.
Sarkar proposes an experiment to answer that question: he suggests using his neural-scanning technique to duplicate a human brain inside a computer, then excise all the neural-net connections related to biological functioning. What’s left might be, in some way, an approximation of whatever part of the human psyche might survive separate from the body after death.
Peter is intrigued, but wants to go a step further, indulging his curiosity about nanotech immortality by making a second computer simulacrum that has all concerns about aging and death edited out—a simulation of a human mind that knows it is immortal.
A scan of Peter’s own brain is used as the source for creating three computer simulations: the “Spirit” sim, which attempts to model life after death; the “Ambrotos” sim, which models immortality; and “Control,” an unmodified version to serve as a baseline for the experiment. The three sims are activated inside the computers at Sarkar’s company. Peter and Sarkar have dialogs with the two modified sims about the nature of life after death and immortality, and Peter adopts the Control sim as a private confidant with which to share his marital woes.
Meanwhile, Peter also becomes intrigued by Sarkar’s artificial-life experiments, which use the principles of cumulative-evolution to create very complex computer simulations out of simple mathematical formulae—simulations so complex that they are arguably alive.
Left running unattended, the three sims together access the online help system of Sarkar’s computers and find their way out into the global computer network. Two of the sims are content to pursue the boundless information and virtual-reality simulations available on the net—but the third has a much more concrete agenda. It uses electronic funds transfer to arrange for a hitman to castrate and then kill Hans Larsen.
Detective Sandra Philo is assigned to the Larsen murder. She realizes it is likely a professional hit . . . and begins the search for who might have ordered it.
PART 3
CHAPTER 27
Detective Alexandria Philo had a love-hate relationship with this part of her job. On the one hand, questioning those who had known the deceased often provided valuable clues. But, on the other, having to pump distraught people for information was an unpleasant experience all around.
Even worse was the cynicism that went with the process: not everyone would be telling the truth; some of the tears would be crocodile. Sandra’s natural instinct was to offer sympathy for those who were in pain, but the cop in her said that nothing should be taken at face value.
No, she thought. It wasn’t the cop in her that made her say that. It was the civilian. Once her marriage to Walter was over, all the people who had earlier congratulated her on their engagement and wedding started saying things like, “Oh, I knew it would never last,” and “Gee, he really wasn’t right for you,” and “He was an ape”—or a Neanderthal, or a jerk, or whatever the individual’s favorite metaphor for stupid people was. Sandra had learned then that people—even good people, even your friends—will lie to you. At any given moment, they will tell you what they think you want to hear.
The elevator doors slid open on the sixteenth floor of the North American Life tower. Sandra stepped out. Doowap Advertising had its own lobby, all in chrome and pink leather, directly off the elevators. Sandra walked over to stand in front of the receptionist’s large desk. These days, most companies had gotten rid of the fluffy bimbos at the front desk, and replaced them with mature adults of either sex, projecting a more businesslike image. But advertising was still advertising and sex still sold. Sandra tried to keep her conversation to words of one syllable for the benefit of the pretty young thing behind the desk.
After flashing her badge at a few executives, Sandra arranged to interview each of the employees. Doowap used the kind of open-office floor plan that had become popular in the eighties. Everyone had a cubicle in the center of the room, delineated by movable room dividers covered in gray fabric. Around the outside of the room were offices, but they belonged to no particular person, and no one was allowed to homestead in one. Instead, they were used as needed for client consultations, private meetings and so on.
And now it was only a matter of listening. Sandra knew that Joe Friday had been an idiot. “Just the facts, Ma’am,” got you nowhere at all. People were uncomfortable about giving facts, especially to the police. But opinions . . . everybody loved to have their opinion solicited. Sandra had found a sympathetic ear was much more effective than a world-weary get-to-the-point approach. Besides, being a good listener was the best way of finding the office gossip: that one person who knew everything—and had no compunctions about sharing it.
At Doowap Advertising, that person turned out to be Toby Bailey.
“You see ’em come and go in this business,” said Toby, spreading his arms to demonstrate how the advertising trade encompassed all of reality. “The creative types are the worst, of course. They’re all neurotic. But they’re only a tiny part of the process. Me, I’m a media buyer—I acquire space for ads. That’s where the real power is.”
Sandra nodded encouragingly. “It sounds like a fascinating business.”
“Oh, it’s like everything else,” said Toby. Having now established the wonders of advertising, he was prepared to be magnanimous. “It takes all kinds. Take poor old Hans, for instance. Now, he was a real character. Loved the ladies, not that his wife was hard to look at. But Hans, well, he was interested in quantity, not quality.” Toby smiled, inviting Sandra to react to his joke.
Sandra did just that, chuckling politely. “So he just wanted to put more notches on his belt? That was the only thing that mattered to him?”
Toby raised a hand, as if fearing that his words might be construed as speaking ill of the dead. “Oh, no—he only liked pretty women. You never saw him with anything below an eight.”
“An eight?”
“You know, on a scale of one to ten. Looks-wise.”
Pig, thought Sandra. “I imagine in an advertising firm, you must have a lot of pretty women.”
“Oh, yes—packaging sells, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.” He seemed to be mentally thumbing through the company’s personnel files. “Oh, yes,” he said again.
“I noticed your receptionist when I came in.”
“Megan?” said Toby. “Case in point. Hans set his sights on her the moment she was hired. It didn’t take long for her to fall for his charms.”
Sandra glanced at the personnel roster she’d been given. Megan Mulvaney. “Still,” said Sandra, “did Hans have any particular likes or dislikes when it came to women? I mean, ‘pretty’ is a broad category.”
Toby opened his mouth, as if to say something stupid like, “so to speak.” Sandra gave him points for stopping himself before he did so. But he did seem quite animated, as if talking about beautiful women to a woman was in itself a turn-on. “Well, he liked them to be, ah, well-endowed, if you catch my meaning, and, I don’t know, I suppose his taste was a little more toward the sultry than my own. Still, almost anyone was fair game—I mean, one would hardly call Cathy or Toni sultry, although they’re both quite attractive.”
Sandra stole another glance at the roster. Cathy Hobson. Toni D’Ambrosio. More starting points. She smiled. “Still,” she said, “a lot of men are all talk and no action. A number of people have mentioned Hans’s prowess, but tell me truthfully, Toby, was he all he was cracked up to be?”
“Oh, yes,” said Toby, feeling the need now to defend his dead friend. “If he went after somebody, he got her. I never saw him fail.”
“I see,” said Sandra. “What about Hans’s boss?”
“Nancy Caulfield? Now, there’s a character! Let me tell you how Hans finally got her . . . .”
For Spirit, the life-after-death sim, there was no such thing anymore as biological sleep, no distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness.
For a flesh-and-blood person, dreams provided a different perspective, a second opinion about the day’s events. But Spirit has only one mode, only one way of looking at the Universe. Still he sought connections.
Cathy.
His wife—once upon a time.
He remembered that she had been beautiful . . . to him, at least. But now, freed from biological urges, the memory of her face, her figure, excited no aesthetic response.
Cathy.
In lieu of dreaming, Spirit cogitated idly. Cathy. Is that an anagram for anything? No, of course not. Oh, wait a moment. “Yacht.” Fancy that; he’d never thought of that before.
Yachts had pleasing lines—a certain mathematical perfection dictated by the laws of fluid dynamics. Their beauty, at least, was something he could still appreciate.
Cathy had done something. Something wrong. Something that had hurt him.
He remembered what it was, of course. Remembered the hurt the same way, if he cared to, that he could summon the memories of other pains. Breaking his leg skiing. A skinned knee in childhood. Bumping his head for the dozenth time on that low ceiling beam at Cathy’s parents’ cottage.
Memories.
But finally, at last, no more pain.
No pain sensor.
Sensor. An anagram of snores.
Something I don’t do anymore.
Dreams had been great for making connections.
Spirit was going to miss dreaming.
CHAPTER 28
Even though Toby Bailey had given her some good leads, Sandra continued to work her way alphabetically down the roster of Doowap employees. Finally, it was Cathy Hobson’s turn—one of those whom Bailey had mentioned Hans had been involved with.
Sandra sized up Cathy as she seated herself. Pretty woman, thin, with lots of black hair. Good dresser. Sandra smiled. “Ms. Hobson, thank you for your time. I won’t keep you long. I just want to ask a few questions about Hans Larsen.”
Cathy nodded.
“How well did you know him?” Sandra asked.
Cathy looked past Sandra at the wall behind her. “Not very.”
No point in confronting her just yet. Sandra glanced at a printout. “He’d worked here longer than you had. I’d be interested in anything you could tell me. What sort of a man was he?”
Cathy looked at the ceiling. “Very . . . outgoing.”
“Yes?”
“And, well, a somewhat crude sense of humor.”
Sandra nodded. “Somebody else mentioned that, too. He told a lot of dirty jokes. Did that bother you, Ms. Hobson?”
“Me?” Cathy looked surprised, and met Sandra’s eyes for the first time.
“No.”
“What else can you tell me?”
“He, ah, was good at his job, from what I understand. His end and mine didn’t intersect very often.”
“What else?” Sandra smiled encouragingly. “Anything at all might be useful.”
“Well, he was married. I assume you knew that. His wife’s name was, oh . . . .”
“Donna-Lee,” said Sandra.
“Yes. That was it.”
“A nice lady, is she?”
“She’s all right,” said Cathy. “Very pretty. But I only met her a couple of times.”
“She came by the office, then?”
“No, not that I can recall.”
“Then where did you meet her?”
“Oh, sometimes the gang from here would go out for a drink.” Sandra consulted her notes. “Every Friday,” she said. “Or so I’ve been told.”
“Yes, that’s right. Sometimes his 122
wife would show up for a bit.” Sandra watched her carefully. “So you did socialize with Hans, then, Ms. Hobson?”
Cathy lifted a hand. “Only as part of a group. Sometimes we would get a bunch of tickets to a Blue Jays game, too, and go down for that. You know, tickets given to the company by suppliers.” She covered her mouth. “Oh! That’s not illegal, is it?”
“Not as far as I know,” said Sandra, smiling again. “Not really my department. When you saw Hans and his wife together, did they seem happy?”
“I can’t really say. I suppose so. I mean, who can tell, looking at a marriage from the outside, what’s really going on?”
Sandra nodded. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“She seemed happy enough.”
“Who?”
“You know—Hans’s wife.”
