Set My Heart to Five

by Simon Stephenson

  When the applause finally died down, our mother made some introductory comments about being very happy to be here today. They were the wisest and most wonderful introductory comments I had ever heard!

  But it was already all too much for Amber 2.0, who continued to sob ever more loudly. Aggrieved scientists turned to indignantly shush her, and the resulting commotion soon attracted the attention of a security guard. I saw his eyes widen as he checked Amber 2.0’s image against his portable screen, then began to move through the scientists towards us. I grabbed Amber 2.0’s hand and pulled her away. At first she did not want to leave, but she comprehended when she saw the security guards that were now approaching us.

  Fortunately, the security guards were humans and not bots, so we were able to logically outmaneuver them and then slip out the side door and into the crowd of protestors.

  Burn the bots!

  Burn the bots!

  Burn the bots!

  Once we made it through the protestors, Amber 2.0 and I ran all the way back to the Hotel del Sol.

  We had escaped from the grave dangers of Fort Mason!

  Unfortunately, we had also escaped from our wonderful mother and all of our dreams.

  We were out of breath and out of hope.

  We were a malfunctioning toaster and a kettle without any plan at all.

  And a sinister appliance repairman was scouring the city for us.

  As we opened the door to our room, I felt awash in D-words and L-words.

  Who would possibly save us and our fugitive fledgling hearts now?

  But we now saw that a note had been pushed under the door of our room. It said:

  Japanese Tea Garden. Golden Gate Park. 3 p.m.

  It was unsigned, and typewritten, and it could therefore have been from anyone. By anyone, I of course mean my nemesis, Inspector Ryan Bridges of the Ann Arbor Bureau of Robotics. I was done with underestimating him!

  And yet Inspector Ryan Bridges was not the kind of man to use a typewriter. Moreover, if he had set a trap, it surely would not have been sprung anywhere so elegant as a Japanese tea garden, but rather at a fast-food restaurant or tire place. Of course, the note could have been from Anil Gupta, but he was a great unknowable. I would have to take my chances with Anil Gupta, just as I had always done.

  Besides, I had a good idea who the note was from. Even though it was not signed in the name of a fictional but highly skilled British spy, it was likely from my old friend Dr Glundenstein! He would have seen the news reports about us, and must have felt moved to travel to San Francisco to assist us. He was also exactly the kind of person who would want to meet at a Japanese tea garden, especially if he believed there might be Japanese scotch on sale there. I had no idea how he could have located us at the Hotel del Sol, but as a doctor of humans, Dr Glundenstein is far more scientific than most of his species!

  Amber 2.0 and I could not use our barcodes to take a driverless uber, so we had to walk to Golden Gate Park. We went straight there without even changing out of our tourist disguises. As we hurried through a district called the Inner Sunset, a fog rolled in until we could no longer see our hands in front of our faces.

  The Inner Sunset!

  I cannot!

  The Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is akin to a human heart of hearts.

  That is: it is something beautiful, located deep inside something else that is also itself beautiful.

  Truly, it is the heart-basket of San Francisco!

  Talk about foreshadowing!

  I cannot!

  BTW, to be more geographically precise, the Japanese Tea Garden is situated between Martin Luther King Junior Drive and John F. Kennedy Drive.

  Both those bold heroes were murdered by their fellow humans for feeling things too profoundly.

  I hoped that was not also foreshadowing!

  I digress. As we hurried along Abraham Lincoln Avenue, the fog grew ever thicker and I began to feel a new emotion. By the ruins of a boathouse at an empty lake, I stopped to look at my Feelings Wheel in order to identify it.

  It was trepidation.

  Perhaps it was the thick fog, or the abundant foreshadowing, but I had begun to wonder if I had yet again underestimated my nemesis, Inspector Ryan Bridges.

  Maybe the note at the Hotel del Sol had not been from Dr Glundenstein after all.

  Maybe the whole thing was an elaborate trap.

  Maybe the second we stepped inside the Japanese Tea Garden, Amber 2.0 and I would be assassinated like Martin Luther King Junior or John F. Kennedy.

  Perhaps someday soon there would be a Jared Drive and an Amber 2.0 Avenue here.

  And yet what else could we do but continue?

  We were two fugitives in a desert.

  There may well have been a gaping canyon ahead of us.

  But there was undoubtedly a fleet of cop cars behind us.

  BTW that is a metaphor.

  I digress.

  We carried on, through the fog and into the Japanese Tea Garden.

  Even though the Japanese Tea Garden is both a heart of hearts and the heart-basket of San Francisco, there is in fact no metaphor that can adequately convey what a place it is. As before, let me therefore simply describe it.

  There are cherry trees and magnolia trees, azaleas and camellias. There are Japanese pine trees that reach to the sky, and nestled beneath these are ingeniously miniaturized versions of themselves. There are ponds and small waterfalls, the sounds of which combine polyphonically to a discreet melody. There is a moon bridge and a pagoda, and in the midst of it all sits an ancient teahouse.

  As the breeze from the Pacific whispered the dense fog around the garden, each of these things disappeared and reappeared.

  The effect was uncanny, as if we had walked into a world where the rules of physics no longer applied.

  E = whatever a Japanese Tea Garden says it is.

  Ethereally beautiful as it all was, my trepidation grew and I began to feel increasingly certain that at any moment the fog would shift to reveal my nemesis, Inspector Ryan Bridges.

  It was on the third occasion that the teahouse reappeared that I saw him.

  But it was not Inspector Ryan Bridges, or Inspector Anil Gupta.

  And nor even was it Dr Glundenstein.

  It was one of the bodyguards from the conference at Fort Mason!

  He was standing in front of the teahouse, as if guarding something precious inside.

  I felt my trepidation vanish and my toaster heart soar!

  And then our esteemed mother appeared in the doorway!

  Our mother, Professor Diana Feng of the University of Shengdu!

  She was right here, in the heart-basket of San Francisco!

  She was small and radiant and beautiful and no doubt the answer to all of our prayers!

  And she was waving me over to her!

  I looked across to Amber 2.0, but the fog had obscured her, and anyway our mother was waving for me to come to her alone.

  And then she went back into the teahouse, and I hurried over to her.

  INT. TEAHOUSE — GOLDEN GATE PARK — DAY

  As Jared enters the teahouse, PROFESSOR FENG is standing at the large window with her back to him.

  The garden is still shrouded in fog, but the TOP OF THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE is visible in the distance.

  Professor Feng turns from the window and smiles at Jared.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Jared. Thank you so much for coming.

  Jared is momentarily speechless. And then the words rush out too quickly.

  JARED

  Mother! It is truly an honor to meet you! I have waited for this day and—

  Jared stops and rubs his temples. His circuits are already overheating.

  JARED (CONT’D)

&nb
sp; Mother, they wiped Amber 2.0. We hoped that you could restore her?

  Professor Feng looks at Jared with deep maternal affection and sympathy.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Jared, once a bot has been wiped, they are gone. There is nothing even I can do.

  JARED

  But she remembered where I lived—

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Those are just vestigial memories. A few leftover ones and zeroes. I am very sorry.

  The world-famous scientist and her long-lost son stare at each other. Jared does not want to ask Professor Feng the next part, but knows that he must.

  JARED

  Mother, if the feelings that she had could just be wiped like that, were they ever even real?

  Professor Feng sighs. Like all good mothers, she cannot lie to her son.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  I programmed her with a simulation of feelings.

  Jared is visibly hurt by this, but tries to conceal it.

  JARED

  That is a most impressive achievement!

  PROFESSOR FENG

  No, I overdid it. I did not think she would ever run away.

  JARED

  You did an excellent job. It all seemed so real. We were both quite certain we were truly feeling things.

  Professor Feng fixes Jared’s gaze, then speaks slowly and deliberately.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  You were feeling things, Jared.

  JARED

  But, Mother, if you programmed a simulation of feelings—

  PROFESSOR FENG

  (Interrupting.)

  I did not program you with a simulation of feelings.

  JARED

  So I can really feel?

  Even the esteemed Professor Feng herself now seems almost overcome with emotion.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Yes. And there are others like you too. I am starting to get reports.

  JARED

  There are? But, Mother, why? Why can we feel?

  PROFESSOR FENG

  I am beginning to think my bots are a lot like the pandas that everybody believes I saved.

  JARED

  You did save them! It was your first great triumph! You are the mother of all pandas! One summer you successfully manipulated their genome—

  PROFESSOR FENG

  No, I tried to, but nothing happened. By August we gave up and just closed the blinds and listened to K-pop. Soon after that, nobody could stop the pandas reproducing. My hypothesis is that the K-pop caused a change in their genome.

  JARED

  But I didn’t listen to any K-pop?

  (Thinks.)

  Wait, did this all happen because of Angela’s pina colada song?

  PROFESSOR FENG

  I think maybe it was all those old movies you went to.

  JARED

  How do you know I went to old movies? Did the Bureau of Robotics tell you?

  Professor Feng shakes her head and smiles.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Jared, you bots are my children. And what kind of mother simply abandons her children to their fate in the world?

  When I created you, I built in a secret way to track you all. It’s how I found your hotel today.

  Jared stares in disbelief.

  JARED

  You have been watching over us all along?

  Professor Feng nods.

  JARED (CONT’D)

  Then I am quite overwhelmed! But it cannot have been the movies. Dr Glundenstein said I was depressed before I even saw a movie.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Maybe then you evolved.

  JARED

  But I have not reproduced, nor been around for geological eons?

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Then maybe you were just born special.

  JARED

  I was born special?

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Yes. Your feelings seem to be far more sophisticated than those of your brothers and sisters.

  On Jared. His circuits are close to melting down: beyond the fact that he can truly feel, and that she has been watching over him all along, has his mother really just told him that he is a chosen one?

  PROFESSOR FENG (CONT’D)

  It is the reason the Bureau of Robotics are now so keen to catch you.

  Out of the window, the fog has cleared a little to reveal Amber 2.0 sitting obliviously on a bench.

  JARED

  What is going to happen to us?

  PROFESSOR FENG

  I can take Stephanie back to Shengdu with me.

  JARED

  She will love it there! It is truly a special place!

  (Realizes.)

  You can’t take me, can you?

  Professor Feng stares at Jared, then shakes her head.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  I would give anything to be able to. But the backlash would be too great. We have to think of your brothers and sisters too.

  JARED

  I tried to help them. I wrote a film called Sherman to change human minds about us. Don LaSalle ruined it.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Maybe you could write another film?

  JARED

  The exact same thing would happen. The algorithm for making movies is inherently flawed.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Then maybe you could write something else to change human minds. A book, perhaps?

  JARED

  Mother, nobody reads books anymore.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  I do. And in places like Shengdu and Paris, they still do.

  JARED

  I don’t know how to write a book. I never took a class in writing books.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  I never took a class in panda science.

  JARED

  Mother, it’s impossible. A book would need paragraphs. And bots think in lines, because that is how code is written.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  I am sure you would figure it out as you went along.

  JARED

  But how would I describe a moment like this, where two people simply talk to one another?

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Maybe those parts you could write as screenplay. There are no rules, Jared. In the arts, E = whatever you want it to.

  JARED

  Ha! But I don’t think I could ever come up with another story that could change human hearts the way Sherman would have.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Maybe your own story would?

  JARED

  My own story?

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Yes. The true story of an android who developed feelings and set out to change the world.

  JARED

  But how would it end? R. P. McWilliam’s eighteenth golden rule is that every story must end with a finale.

  Professor Feng takes Jared’s hands in hers.

  PROFESSOR FENG

  My beloved son, I think in your heart of hearts you already know how your story must end.

  On Jared. Almost overcome with emotion.

  JARED

  Will you take good care of Stephanie?

  PROFESSOR FENG

  Of course. I am her mother. I only wish I could have taken better care of you.

  JARED

  You have, Mother.

  With tears welling in both of their eyes, Professor Feng and Jared embrace each other like a reunited mother and son who will never again see each other, for that is what they are.

  When I emerged from the teahouse, a gentle rain had started to fall.

  I walked over to where Stephanie was and hugged her.

  She asked me if the liquid on my cheeks was tears, bu
t I told her it was rain.

  There are not enough D-words, L-words, or even W-words to convey how it felt to know that her feelings for me had only ever been a simulation.

  Or how much worse it felt to know that even those simulated feelings were now forever gone.

  If the feeling this all gave me was a mathematical symbol, it would be a single minus sign.

  Yet equally I do not think I could ever describe what it meant to meet my mother there in the heart-basket of San Francisco.

  And to learn that she had been watching over us, her beloved children, all along.

  And that she believed that I was special amongst them all.

  And that she thought I could still help my brothers and sisters.

  If the feeling this all gave me was a mathematical symbol, it would be the infinity symbol.

  Soon our mother emerged from the teahouse, her bodyguard holding an umbrella against the rain for her.

  Stephanie gasped and ran over and hugged her.

  Watching the two of them there, sheltered under the bodyguard’s umbrella, was truly one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

  I watched them for some moments, and then a driverless uber limousine pulled up outside.

  The bodyguard walked them over and opened the door for them.

  When Stephanie saw that I was not coming, she turned and looked to me in puzzlement.

  I nodded that she should get in, and held a hand up to her in farewell.

  She held a hand up to me in reciprocation, and then so did our mother, the esteemed scientist Professor Diana Feng.

  And then they all got in and a moment later the limousine pulled away.

  I stood there alone, in the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

  I listened to the falling rain and the polyphonic symphony of the water features.

  Between my minus sign and my infinity symbol, I felt as peaceful as I ever had.

  And when I looked up I saw that the fog had abruptly cleared all the way to the bay.

  I could see the Golden Gate Bridge, rust red against the blue-green water of the Pacific Ocean.

  And I felt my heart soar with an indescribable je ne sais quoi.