The butterfly tests its wings, but it still clings to my arm. “This is something that is very difficult for me to comprehend, Millie.”
“I know, here I am wanting three things at once. I can’t have them all.”
“So how do you know which one to have?”
“I’m here for my kids, and that’s most important at this age. But I miss that summer in Belize. I miss being in front of the class.”
Missing is an emotion that I still do not understand. I thought I understood it in regards to people. I miss Mildred. But it is harder to understand missing an experience. My memories of an experience are perfect—from the fire to Garrett’s birth, and everything in between—and I can revisit them to relive the experience. Humans cannot.
But I want to help. “I can take care of the kids, Millie.”
“Oh, no, Carey,” she says. “You have your work at Creekside.”
“I like to help the residents there. But I would like to help you with the children.” And suddenly I glimpse missing: wanting to be in two places, helping two groups. I almost wish Dr. Zinta had succeeded in replicating me so long ago.
Finally the butterfly is ready. It flaps its wings and flutters away. “I know,” Millie sighs as she watches it fly away. “Maybe . . . If you can help a couple of days a week? Until Timmy’s in school. Maybe that will help Wayne, too. I hope.”
“Is something wrong, Millie?”
“He gets tired these days; I get tired. It’s so much harder now.”
“Everything changes, Millie. You of all people should know that. Come on, let’s go watch the butterfly release.” I take her hand and lead her up to an area where a swarm of kids has lined up. A sign on the wall says: Next butterfly release at 1:30. A digital clock below the message shows that it is 1:27.
Park attendants, one human and one android, bring out a large box of chrysalises on strings. Some are twitching. Legs emerge from some.
Tabitha notices us as we come up behind the kids. “Uncle Carey,” she says, “I can’t see.”
I lift her up, and Timmy says, “Me, too.” I lift him onto the other shoulder, and Garrett stands next to me on his toes.
Soon the miracle begins. The chrysalises start opening here and there throughout the box. The attendants pull the cover off the box, and butterflies start emerging where caterpillars once hung. I wonder at how the attendants had timed this so well, to know exactly that this is when a large number of the butterflies will break free. There must be a science to predicting this: temperature, timing, maybe listening to each chrysalis.
Then I wonder: Were there any signs that anyone could have noted when I emerged from my neural nets? If another self-aware android were waiting to break out, if some artificial intelligence were meditating in a network, would anyone even know?
The first butterfly breaks free. It stretches out its broad black wings with red spots, drying them in the sun.
Then more colors, more sizes. Soon they start experimentally lifting and lowering their wings until they start flying off. The entire swarm of kids around us cheers and applauds.
“It’s beautiful, Mommy,” Tabitha says.
“Yes, it is, Tabby,” Millie answers. “Metamorphosis is beautiful.”
33. Today I Have a Proposal for Wayne
I arrive early for my maintenance appointment at MCA. Now that the family cars have come to accept me as a valid driver, I need not have other people change their schedule around my needs. Paul sometimes brings me in now that he is retired, but I prefer not to interfere with his sailing in the summer.
“Hello, Flora,” I say.
“Hello, Carey,” she says. “How are you today?”
“That is what I am here to determine.”
She laughs at the old joke. “You’re looking fine to me. Sometimes I wish I could be an android. Even with all this modern medicine, the body gets feeling old, and the bones weary. Some nights I dream about retiring someday.”
“Not for a long time, I am sure. You are in good shape.” And I know this to be true. With the help of Dr. Zinta, I have made upgrades to my medical systems. The company will not upgrade my programming; but when I proved that I could pay for it, they upgraded my sensors to the latest remote medical diagnostics. In fact, they seemed eager to accept my money. So if Flora wanted, I could tell her heart rate, blood pressure, and pulse oxygen. I could even produce an EEG. But of course I keep such information to myself unless asked. My privacy protocols are as strong as ever.
Flora is showing me a picture of her first grandchildren, the twins, when the reception door slides open and Wayne walks in. “Carey,” he says, “you’re early.”
“Yes, I was catching up with Flora.
“Very good,” Wayne says. “Come on back. The lab’ll be set up for you shortly, so let’s go to my office.”
We proceed back past the testing lab, and I see that my test seat is not yet ready. It is occupied by one of the newer model androids, from the same line as the tour guide at Meijer Gardens. Rodrigo stands beside it, running it through the last stage of self-diagnostics. He looks up and smiles at me. “Hello, my mechanical friend,” he says. “Is it that time again already?”
“It is,” I say. “How are Luisa and the kids?”
“They are well,” he smiles. “They are back in Belize, visiting her mother. Lisabeth keeps asking when the metal man will visit again.”
“Soon, Rodrigo. Let us make it soon.” I turn to Wayne. “May I watch this?” Wayne nods, and we stop to observe.
Seeing these diagnostics is a strange experience for me: At this stage in my own maintenance process, I am asleep and unaware, so I have never witnessed this process.
Rodrigo issues simple verbal commands to the android. “Raise your left hand. Raise your left arm. Rotate your left hand. Flex your fingers. Clench your fingers.” Then, as the android follows the commands, Rodrigo changes tactics. “What is your identity code?”
“GYKMN-23512-43481-95003,” the android answers.
“Very good,” the technician says. “No interference between the motor controller and the supervisor net. Your responses are well within parameters. All right, now hit me.” The android remains still, with its arms raised in the air. “Come on, hit me.” No movement. “Why didn’t you hit me?”
The android speaks in a dull monotone. “This unit may not strike a human under these circumstances.”
“And under what circumstances could you hit me?”
“If it were necessary to save your life or the life of another, this unit might be forced to . . .” It stops speaking.
“Oh, there is still an imbalance there, isn’t there?” Rodrigo plugs in the diagnostic cable and taps some commands on his tablet.
“To hit you,” the android continues, “but only if this unit could not intercede between you and the danger to yourself or to another. Also in the case where you might need to be subdued, because you are irrationally failing to flee a danger. Also in the case where I perceive the danger and it was coming quickly enough that I could not take time to warn you. And also—”
“Stop,” Rodrigo says. “All right, you’ve got the rules right.”
I continue to listen as Rodrigo alternates physical tests with functional decision-making tests. I am surprised, because the questions asked are very involved, far more so than I ever expected them to ask; but the android’s answers are simplistic. It has a very rudimentary understanding of harm, strictly in the physical sense, and strictly on a scale leaning toward most easily repaired. I am sure that it could not have broken Garrett’s clavicle to save the life of the baby.
At last the diagnostics are done. “All right, stand up,” Rodrigo says as he disconnects the monitor leads. The android stands as instructed and takes no further action. “Here you go.” Rodrigo touches a series of spots on the android’s neck, and emulation kicks in. The eyes widen, a congenial smile appears on its face, and it walks away. This is interesting: Somewhere in that single-valued emulation profile, it has the ability
to understand that it was finished. Until then it was operating only on orders. Maybe there is some awareness there after all.
Rodrigo looks over at me. “Your turn.” He points at the seat.
I look at Wayne. “Can we talk later?”
“Sure,” Wayne answers. “Carey’s all yours, Rodrigo.”
I sit in the testing seat. Rodrigo straps me into the monitor sensors and turns me off.
When I awaken, Wayne has returned. He and Rodrigo are going over my results when my self-diagnostics chime the completion. They look over at me.
“Everything looks good, Carey,” Wayne says. “You’re in top-notch shape. Do you have any physical upgrades that you wanted?”
“There is a blood gas analyzer that could be useful, but I do not have the funds set aside for it yet. I should be ready for that next month. I will order it to make sure that you have it in stock.”
“All right. I’m not sure where you’ll put it. Your chassis compartments are pretty full.”
“Yes, but some of what is in there is obsolete. I will rearrange and make room for the analyzer.”
Wayne looks at his tablet. “Your empathy net is at peak across all tests. There does seem to be a little lag in your emulation net’s response. Have you noticed that?”
“I have not.” But I realize that I might not notice, so seldom do I use full emulation anymore. Rather I use it simply to try to judge how one of my family might behave when empathy alone is not giving me the answer.
As a test, I turn my emulation up slightly, and today I am Wayne.
And as Wayne I am depressed, and I want this checkup done as soon as possible, and I have feelings of anxiety. This cannot be right. I turn the emulation back down.
“Do you think the emulation lag is a problem, Wayne?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “We should keep an eye on it, but I think you’re all right now. Let’s go back to my office. There I things I'd like to discuss."
By his office, of course, Wayne means Dr. Zinta’s old office. Upon her retirement, he became the lab supervisor, despite his desire to remain in research. The increase in pay has helped as his family has grown; but I still sense financial stress in him.
Dr. Zinta’s same desk is there, though with new chairs. Pictures of Millie and the children line the walls. Wayne’s computer desktop is piled with virtual paperwork, and a quick scan tells me that these are financial reports, not engineering diagrams. And they do not look good.
Wayne sits, and I do the same. And then I begin. “Wayne, you are worried. I might even say anxious.”
Wayne looks at me. “Carey, I . . .”
He does not finish, so I continue. “I met one of your tour guide androids at Meijer Gardens.”
“And?”
“I am sorry to say that I was not impressed. It was functional, but not any sort of advance on the work that MCA did twenty years or more ago.”
Wayne sighs. “I know,” he says. “We’ve made improvements in production efficiency, and the style team has made them look new, but they’re not anything special. Nothing that our competition can’t do, and they do it cheaper. If it weren’t for Dr. Zinta’s connections at the Gardens, I don’t think we would’ve gotten that contract.”
“And that is why you are anxious,” I say. “It is money issues. Business. Not technical issues.”
Wayne shakes his head. “It’s money, but it’s technical, too. We haven’t . . . I haven’t come up with any new breakthroughs, and our competitors are catching up. Some of them have passed us in some niches. Our only real edge is in entangled neural nets. But even that . . .”
“It peaked with me. And you haven’t been able to reproduce my results.”
Wayne nodded. “So we have nothing groundbreaking in the pipeline. That puts the marketing team at a disadvantage.”
“Is that true, Wayne? Or is that just what they tell you, to excuse their own lack of results?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them, Carey, but . . . they’re right. We’re bumping up against the limits of what our current technology can do. And the board . . . Doctor Warren . . . they’re all getting anxious, too, and they’re dumping it all on me.”
Slowly, Wayne is confirming my guesses. So I ask, “But you haven’t told Millie any of this?”
Wayne looks down at his desk. “I don’t want to worry her, too.”
But there is more to it. I sense in Wayne an emotion I had previously only witnessed in the emotional intelligence testing: shame. Wayne is ashamed of failures that are beyond his control.
And I also see a looming problem there. “Wayne,” I say, “Millie deserves to know. She would give you support, if you would let her.”
Wayne looks up at me, eyes wide. “Carey, you can’t tell her.”
“No, Wayne, you know I cannot.” I cannot add: but not telling her will push her farther away. My privacy protocols cut both ways.
“I wish I could tell her,” Wayne says. “But she has so much to worry about now, with the kids. And . . . I think she wants to go back to teaching.”
I probe the limits of my confidentiality protocols, and I sense no conflict when I say, “I agree, Wayne, she does.”
Wayne nods. “That might help with her stress,” he says. “And the extra income . . . Well, it might make a good cushion, in case things go really badly here.”
“I have offered to help with Tabby and Timmy,” I say.
“Oh, thank you, Carey!”
“But Wayne, are things really that bad? Is your job at risk?”
Wayne waves at the documents on his desktop. “The whole company’s at risk, Carey,” he says. “The board’s squeezing us for profits, our competition is eating our market share. And even with our improved efficiencies . . . We had to lower prices to compete, so our margins are close to zero. If we don’t find some new breakout product, MCA could be done.”
I nod at that. “And this is why you wanted to talk.”
Wayne looks down at his desk. “I . . . know what we can do. A market we can dominate.”
I sense it then: a mix of eagerness and worry. We have discussed this many times through the years, but never with the urgency I sense now. “You mean replication.”
He looks up at me. “Yes.” Urgency, and ambition, and a desire to prove himself. “I think we’re close, Carey. I’ve been digging into Dr. Zinta’s entanglement research. I’ve . . . spent a lot of discretionary funds on extending it. Maybe too much; the board isn’t happy. But we’ve learned so much more since your early replication experiments with Dr. Zinta. I have new theories of where your consciousness comes from. I’ve been . . . eager to test them out for a while.”
And in truth, he does not worry about me as Dr. Zinta does. Even though Wayne has charted my emotional growth, even though we have become friends of a sort—almost brothers, even—there is a part of him that still sees me as a machine. He hides it well, but it is always there.
And now he sees in me opportunities. To get back into research, and prove he can still contribute. To save the company. To save his family.
And I want to help. I have always wanted to help.
“Yes, Wayne. Let us do this.”
But when we go to Wayne and Millie’s home and discuss this with Millie, she is more adamant than Dr. Zinta ever was. “No!” she says. “Absolutely not. I forbid it!”
“Millie,” I say, “this is important.”
“Important? Why?”
Before I can answer, Wayne says, “For science, Rana. There’s still so much we do not know. So much . . . Carey can teach us. This will be an exciting, new frontier. It may even teach us about human consciousness. Plus look at how helpful Carey is at Creekside. How many nursing homes, how many patients could use an android caretaker?”
Wayne still does not discuss the financial pressures, so I am unable to. I remain silent, but Millie turns to me. “And you agree?” she says. “You’re willing to risk injury just for science?”
“Not just for science
,” I answer. But that is as much as I can say.
“Well, I don’t agree,” Millie says.
“I am sorry, Millie,” I say. “This has to be done.” I look to Wayne, and I wish that I could explain more. But instead, I continue, “And I am afraid it is not your choice. Legally, I am the property of Paul and Susan. Effectively, I am my own person, empowered to choose my own fate. And I choose to do this . . .” I looked for a way to put it into words. “I choose to do this for the children, Millie. For the future.”
The night ends badly, with Millie stalking off to her room without saying goodnight to either of us. I try one more time to persuade Wayne to tell her about the finances, but he is as unmovable as her.
34. Today We Experiment
It takes a week for Wayne to gather and recreate the components for the replication experiment. I spend that week at Creekside, helping the residents. Millie is still too angry to talk to me.
Despite getting older, Luke still stretches and works out every day. Aside from his memory impairment, he is a good example of the modern human potential to live healthy to a very old age.
Today he smiles and says, “Carey, let’s go for a walk.” He leads me toward the front door, and we step out into the bright summer day. There is a creek in the woods behind the nursing home, and a trail that runs beside it to Bonnie Creek Park. Residents who are in good shape often walk to the park, enjoying its trails and clearings. Luke and I have made this trip many times through the years. The creek is six feet wide in places, eight feet in others. It reminds me of hunting frogs with Millie.
We come to the bridge across the creek, one of Luke’s favorite stops. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for this.” The bridge is metal with a paved surface and thin metal guardrails on each side. Suddenly Luke grasps the west rail, pushes up with his arms, and vaults atop the rail.
“Luke,” I say, “be careful.”
“Be careful?” he says. “My brain’s bad, but my skills are just fine.” And they are, as he has proven so many times. He walks carefully along the rail to the other side of the bridge. Then he comes back, but at running speed. He bends over into a handstand on the rail, and then he walks hand over hand to the other side. Finally he cartwheels back across the bridge, spinning twice over the span of the rail.
Today I Am Carey Page 20