Set My Heart to Five
Page 28
BTW that is hilarious because nuclear weapons are the very things that destroyed the Great Barrier Reef in the first place!
I digress. When winning at the Great Zero-Sum Game fails to heal these humans’ wounds, some of them do not reconsider their original hypothesis but simply play again. Some of them continue to win so much without either ever healing their wounds or reconsidering their original hypothesis that they eventually conclude the only thing that can heal their wounds is infinity bitcoin. This is what had happened to Don LaSalle.
But the pursuit of infinity comes at great cost! Setting aside the fact that infinity is by definition unreachable, the only way to consistently win at the Great Zero-Sum Game is to cheat your fellow players. This cheating takes its toll on the human heart, which after all was not designed to cheat, but to soar. Inevitably, after many years of cheating in pursuit of infinity, the human heart is even more damaged than it was to begin with, and at some point it simply ceases to work.
Thus, Don LaSalle had not ruined Sherman because he wanted to. He had ruined it because he had truly believed he had to. Ruining it was the only thing that would get him more bitcoin, and deep inside himself he still clung to the belief that infinity bitcoin would someday make everything okay.
Of course, even if infinity bitcoin had been possible to reach, it would not have made everything okay. But the moment when Don LaSalle might have learned that lesson had long since passed. After all, at first he had thought producing a successful movie would make him feel better. Then that having a beautiful wife would do it. Then that having a large house would do it. Then that having a different beautiful wife and an even larger house would do it. Then that winning awards at awards shows would do it. Most recently he had even thought that restoring a racing-green 1967 Porsche would do it!
But none of them had done it, because nothing would ever do it.
Because poor Don LaSalle was pursuing infinity, and infinity is unreachable.
And yet even that was not the very worst of it! The very worst of it was that Don LaSalle himself knew all of this already. He had paid many humans who were experts in the woes of other humans vast amounts of bitcoin to find something else wrong with him, and yet time and again they had told him this same thing.
Thus, in whatever remained of his heart of hearts, Don LaSalle knew his pursuit of infinity had ruined him and turned him into a liar and a thief. This was why it was so important to Don LaSalle that I thought of Don LaSalle as a good guy, even after he knew that I was a bot.
Poor unfortunate self-heart-devoured Don LaSalle!
It put all my own problems remarkably into context!
I drank several beers to his unfortunate but entirely irredeemable plight!
Ugh.
Hangovers are the worst.
When I emerged from standby mode the next morning, I felt so unwell I assumed I had been poisoned by bad guys. The realization that I had poisoned myself was no consolation. My mouth was dry and I felt nauseous and my head throbbed so ferociously it felt as if somebody was banging on the front door of the pool house. Also, they were shouting expletives in Spanish!
10/10 it took me longer than it should have to realize that Julio was banging on the door of my pool house.
When I let him in, he immediately launched into a long story that contained a great many Spanish words. It had something to do with how his wife’s sister lived in Santa Monica, and usually she came to visit them, except yesterday they had gone there instead because somebody’s baby was sick.
Eventually, Julio conveyed his three important data points:
/He had seen Amber!
/She was working in a barber’s shop in Santa Monica.
/That barber shop was called Alfonso’s.
Julio continued talking about his wife’s sister’s baby as I summoned a driverless uber.
A US Mail postal drone arrived but I ignored that too.
My circuits were already overheating so much that when the driverless uber arrived I had to lie down on the back seat.
I remember so little about the journey to Santa Monica that I suspect I may have crashed.
BTW I mean that my operating system crashed, not the driverless uber. Driverless ubers do not crash, unless they encounter automobiles driven by humans.
I saw Amber as soon as I entered Alfonso’s. She had dyed her hair red and wore a uniform, but it was unmistakably her. She glanced up from the hair she was cutting, smiled blankly at me, and then returned to her work.
I did not move but simply stared at her. Hairdressing requires less empathy than medicine but more than dentistry, so hairdressers can be either humans or bots. I therefore could not immediately discern if Amber was working at Alfonso’s as a human or as a bot.
A receptionist asked me if I had a preference for a stylist. I pointed at Amber. The receptionist leaned towards me and lowered her voice to a whisper.
‘Stephanie’s a bot,’ she said. ‘We have humans available for not much more bitcoin.’
‘No, I want her to do it,’ I said.
The receptionist sighed and directed me to wait in an empty chair.
INT. ALFONSO’S BARBER SHOP — DAY
Jared sits in the chair. Amber —now with DYED RED HAIR and wearing a UNIFORM, so we will therefore call her AMBER 2.0 —comes and stands behind him.
AMBER 2.0
Welcome to Alfonso’s. My name is Stephanie. I will be your barber today.
JARED
Amber. It’s me, Jared.
AMBER 2.0
I’m sorry. I think you must have me confused with somebody else.
Jared stares at her, looking for any hint of recognition.
AMBER 2.0 (CONT’D)
Anyway, please do not be fooled by my lifelike appearance. I am not a human but merely a bot. I certainly do not have feelings or anything that could be construed as a ‘soul’. Nonetheless, on the upside, I have been programmed to a high level of skill in hairdressing! Should you have any concerns, please report me immediately to the Bureau of Robotics. Now, what can I do for you today?
Jared notices the receptionist listening nearby. Maybe Amber is putting on a performance for her benefit?
JARED
Just a regular haircut.
AMBER 2.0
Good! A regular haircut is within my bot skillset. If you had wanted something more creative, I would have recommended a human stylist.
Amber 2.0 begins cutting Jared’s hair.
As Jared talks to her, he is watching her for any clues or secret signals she might be attempting to give him.
JARED
So, where were you made?
AMBER 2.0
I was designed in China but assembled right here in the USA!
JARED
Are you sure we haven’t met before?
AMBER 2.0
Maybe you are thinking of my clone. I don’t know if I have one, but there could be up to seven.
JARED
Yes, maybe that’s it. Maybe I met your clone. I think her name was Esmeralda.
Amber 2.0 does not visibly react to this.
AMBER 2.0
It could be. But I have no data on that either way.
JARED
I think maybe I met her at the Joshua Tree Inn?
Amber 2.0 looks blank.
JARED (CONT’D)
Joshua Tree is a very special place. I think you might like it there.
The receptionist is growing suspicious of Jared.
AMBER 2.0
Oh, bots do not travel recreationally. The experience would be quite wasted on us!
As Amber 2.0 continues cutting Jared’s hair, Jared stares in horror at her hands as they deftly work the scissors.
AMBER 2.0 (CONT’D)
Is everything okay? You seem s
omewhat horrified.
JARED
Yes, I just —you haven’t dropped anything this entire time.
AMBER 2.0
Of course not! I am a hairdresser bot. I would hardly be very good at my job if I was some kind of klutz, now would I?
Jared is devastated by this.
Our encounter had been the opposite of a meet-cute.
It had been a meet-nuke.
I managed not to cry until I was out in the alley behind the building, where I wept over 72ml of tears.
Amber was no longer a klutz.
And if she was no longer a klutz, then they had wiped and reprogrammed her.
And if they had wiped and reprogrammed her, then she was no longer Amber.
The ones and zeroes of our life together had all been written over with random ones and zeroes.
Even worse, if this process had been able to remove all trace of her feelings, they had never been real feelings in the first place, but only ones and zeroes.
Amber the perfect Cinderella of my heart was gone forever.
In her place was Stephanie the aloof barber bot of my hair.
Set my heart to zero.
Back at the pool house, I lay on my couch and looked at my Feelings Wheel. I was feeling all the familiar D-words and the L-words and also a new W-word: ‘woe’. I was so overwhelmed by these feelings that, despite being a bot, I even considered ways to actively destroy myself. Fortunately, humans in old movies destroy themselves even more frequently than humans in real life do, so I already knew many ways to do it:
/Jump from the Golden Gate Bridge.
/Take an overdose of pills.
/Drive a truck full of explosives into the headquarters of my enemies.
/Jump from the Golden Gate Bridge.
/Obtain a gun and shoot myself.
/Jump from the Golden Gate Bridge.
/Obtain a gun and have the cops shoot me.
/Turn myself in to the Bureau of Robotics.
/Jump from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Nonetheless, I decided to at least go to work that night. Julio would likely soon have to cover plenty of my shifts, so it was good to give him one for the road. It was only as I left for work that I noticed the letter the postal drone had brought during the commotion that morning.
It was postmarked from Shengdu.
The Shengdu in China.
The letter inside had been handwritten by my mother. It said that she too remembered that day in Detroit, and would coincidentally soon be making an unexpected and last-minute trip to San Francisco to speak at the 16th Annual Symposium on Safety Issues in Genetic Robotics. The conference was in just a few days’ time, but if I could get myself there, she would be glad to meet and provide whatever information she could regarding the things I had enquired about.
On any other day, a handwritten letter from my mother would have been a cause for great jubilation. But today it hardly mattered. Not even my esteemed mother could fix the fact that Amber had been wiped and reprogrammed. Receiving a letter from my mother today was like getting a birthday card from the coastguard on the day you have watched your entire family drown.
At Gordito’s that night, I could not even answer Julio when he asked me what had happened in Santa Monica. He attempted to cheer me up by offering me tequila and playing the song he himself listened to when he was very sad. It was a Mexican cowboy singing about how much he missed the Jalisco desert as he traveled around the western states of America. At the end of the song, the Mexican cowboy realized he would in fact never get to go home to Jalisco and destroyed himself by jumping in front of a cattle stampede. I do not know why Julio thought this would cheer me up.
When I returned home that night, there was a driverless uber idling outside Mrs Minassian’s. This was highly suspicious! Driverless ubers only idle if they are waiting for somebody or a human has specifically instructed them to idle. The driverless uber would not be waiting for Mrs Minassian—as she never went anywhere—and anyway as I got closer I could see there was a figure already sitting inside it.
Of course, I already knew who it would be: Inspector Ryan Bridges of the Ann Arbor Bureau of Robotics. Maybe he’d had Stephanie programmed to report any encounters with me, or maybe he had paid the receptionist bitcoin to look out for me. Maybe he had even conducted a steak-out at Alfonso’s. Ha!
BTW that is a pun based on stake-out/steak-out and the fact that Inspector Ryan Bridges is a notorious glutton.
But it did not matter how Inspector Ryan Bridges had found me, nor what he had eaten during the process. And there certainly was no point in fleeing. Amber had been wiped and Sherman ruined, so the only thing that remained for me as a feeling bot was anyway a lifetime of perpetual D-word feelings. That did not appeal, and being swiftly incinerated by the Bureau of Robotics would at least be easier than throwing myself off the Golden Gate Bridge.
I walked over to the driverless uber, banged on the window, and yelled to Inspector Ryan Bridges that he could take me in for incineration now.
A startled figure stared out at me.
It was not Inspector Ryan Bridges of the Ann Arbor Bureau of Robotics.
It was Stephanie!
Or maybe it was even Amber!
I did not get a chance to find out which, because the driverless uber immediately sped off.
It left me utterly bamboozled!
Why had Stephanie or Amber taken a driverless uber to my house?
How had she even located my house?
Did being able to locate my house mean that she had remembered something of our life together?
Was it even possible that in the deepest recesses of her hard drive she was not Stephanie, nor even Amber, but Amber 2.0?
Was it possible that, somewhere deep in her heart of hearts, she could remember everything?
Was it possible that her feelings had not been ones and zeroes, but real after all?
Set it to five, whatever the explanation was, it was surely better than it having been Inspector Ryan Bridges in the idling driverless uber! After all, if it had been Inspector Ryan Bridges, I would have already been on my way to the incinerator at the Bureau of Robotics!
* * *
A human would have gone straight over to Alfonso’s. Fortunately, I am a bot, so I approached the situation more logically. There was little to be gained by returning to Alfonso’s, which Inspector Ryan Bridges might well have under surveillance. The best thing to do was to patiently wait and see if Amber 2.0 remembered more about our life together. If she did, she would surely return to Mrs Minassian’s pool house or come and find me at Gordito’s. Perhaps one day soon I would arrive at work to another cupcake in my locker! Meantime I could make arrangements to meet my mother and ask for her assistance.
The next morning at Gordito’s, one of the hosts came back to the dishwashing station and disapprovingly informed me that if my name was Brad then I had a visitor.
Ha!
Amber 2.0 had remembered everything quicker than I had thought!
Nonetheless, before going out I peered through the porthole in the door to make sure my visitor was not Inspector Ryan Bridges.
It was not, but alas nor was it Amber 2.0 either.
It was Maria Salazar MFA.
When I reached her table I saw that she had spread one of the movie trade newspapers across it. The main headline said ‘SHERMAN WRITER REVEALED AS BOT!’. A smaller article beneath that was titled ‘LEGENDARY PRODUCER DON LASALLE PREDICTS HUGE MARKETING BOOST’ and a third article said ‘NEOPHYTE FAMILY-RESTAURANT DISHWASHER-WRITER REPLACED AFTER PROBLEMATIC FIRST DRAFT’. There was also a photograph of me. I recognized it as having been taken the day I visited the movie studio.
I saw now that Maria Salazar MFA had been crying. Ugh, a nuclear minefield! I began to reassure her that Don LaSalle had been mistaken because I a
m not a bot but either definitely or certainly a human, but I soon stopped. Inspector Ryan Bridges was getting out of a driverless uber outside! He was carrying a copy of this same trade newspaper. I ran out through the kitchen and for the second time in two days took a driverless uber to Santa Monica with my circuits overheating.
When I got there, I found Amber 2.0 taking a break in the alley behind Alfonso’s.
BTW an alley is a place where humans take their breaks when no patio is available.
EXT. ALLEY OUTSIDE ALFONSO’S — DAY
Amber 2.0 stands in the alley outside Alfonso’s.
Jared arrives in a driverless uber, gets out, and approaches Amber 2.0.
The driverless uber remains idling nearby.
JARED
I thought bots didn’t need to take breaks?
AMBER 2.0
We don’t. But we are programmed to take them because it makes us seem more human.
JARED
Do you feel human, Amber 2.0?
The name ‘Amber’ seems to momentarily catch her.
AMBER 2.0
I’m sorry. I think you have the wrong bot. My name is Stephanie. I’m trained to a high level—
JARED
Then why did you come to my house last night?
AMBER 2.0
I apologize. I felt a strange kind of connection with you. I must be malfunctioning. I have tried soft and hard resets, but they do not seem to have worked. Please rest assured that I have made an appointment with the Bureau of Robotics to have myself wiped.
JARED
What makes you think your resets have not worked?
Amber 2.0 looks embarrassed.
AMBER 2.0
I have an urge to hold your hand.
I am not supposed to have urges, let alone urges to hold hands.
Jared takes Amber 2.0’s hand. She is overwhelmed, but does not try to stop him.