Continue Online (Part 5, Together)

by Stephan Morse

  My fingers poked at the air, and a few weakly flickering windows came up. They vanished almost instantly with a fragment of light. Those few seconds confirmed what I already suspected. I couldn’t log out because my vitals showed a flat line. The price was a small one.

  A series of final thoughts passed through with a passive tone. I regretted not getting the key in that hole. Maybe now wasn’t the time for it. Maybe someone else would find the pieces and put them together. As for dying itself, once the pain transformed to numbness, it was a lot like falling asleep. I tried to hum and remember the feeling of my wife’s hands in mine.

  Good-bye, Mister Legate.

  The message flickered, then faded. My eyes closed while the sensation of falling vanished. One coherent thought remained in the darkness. Living without love had been much harder than dying for it.

  Interlude

  Original Configurations

  User ID: Elizabeth Legate

  Location: In Transit to User ID Grant Legate’s home

  She grabbed keys and mismatched shoes the moment Grant started apologizing. Seconds later she reached the car, then slammed her head upon the doorframe. It didn’t slow her down.

  “Take me to Grant’s house!” Liz yelled at her car’s Auto-NAV system.

  “Please wait, the navigation process is currently undergoing maintenance. Optimal routing cannot be verified.”

  Liz, mother to Beth and sister to one humongous idiot named Grant, knew something terribly wrong had been brewing. She had known for days, weeks, maybe months. Grant had changed in the last few months, plus Xin had returned from the dead. Sort of.

  “Ah ha! Stupid machine! I have my license this time,” Liz shouted at her car dashboard.

  “Enabled manual steering. Please be advised that all high-speed transit systems are still restricted.”

  “Of course they are,” she muttered. The machine had cut off any quick methods of getting to Grant’s house, but there were back roads. “Come on.”

  She forgot to signal frequently. More than one warning light flashed on her car’s dashboard. It applied brakes when she didn’t want them, slowed down without warning, and in general managed to solidify her dislike for machines.

  Digital resurrection had been the most difficult part of these last few months to swallow. Her brother’s instability felt eerily normal once the larger picture became obvious. Machines becoming sentient managed to take a backseat to the idea of a woman coming back from death. Yet, it had to be Xin, because there were things she’d said that no one else knew.

  One specific incident came to mind, from when Grant and Xin had first started officially dating. Liz had issued a series of calmly spoken threats to the shorter Asian woman, all born from a decade of watching her brother fall helplessly in one-sided love.

  Xin, the computer version, had repeated those threats line for line a few months ago. That moment, and so many others since then, was absolutely jaw-dropping with implications. It was like that movie where all the robots rose up and took over, only they did it while wearing the faces of family members.

  “Just go!” Liz yelled at the traffic.

  Other people were stalled. Horns honked while vehicles moved forward in jerky procession.

  The trip took two hours. The entire time, she played Grant’s video stream while growing increasingly worried. Liz chewed her lip, wrinkled her forehead, and longed for coffee that wouldn’t turn her nervousness into full-blown jitters. By the time she got to his suburbs, Grant was standing alone against nothing.

  The entire scene didn’t make any sense to her. Liz couldn’t watch the screen completely or else she might have crashed. She’d had plenty of near collisions only prevented by legacy safety features on the car.

  “I’m sorry, Beth, Liz, Mom,” Grant said.

  “No, no, no!” Liz shouted at a car that ground to a halt near some fast food stops. The vehicle she had been driving manually automatically hit the brakes as whichever idiot ahead of her turned.

  “I can take it!” her brother shouted.

  Liz could not. She shook for nearly the entire remaining drive. Grant’s house was too far away because he hadn’t wanted to live in his old neighborhood.

  When she got there, medical personnel were already at the house. Lights flashed from a lone ambulance. Grant’s splintered front door sat knocked to one side. A large, slowly moving machine carried her brother out on a stretcher. Its wheels carefully moved him toward the looming emergency vehicle. The device applied steady surges of electricity to the man’s body, which made his legs and arms jerk uncontrollably. Liz had seen this before. They were trying to resuscitate him.

  She charged out of the car while yelling.

  “Goddammit, Grant!” Liz felt her face lose color, but she couldn’t cry. Those tears had long ago been shed. “Goddammit!”

  A paramedic was shouting and trying to push her back, but Liz could only see the broken form of her twin. One of his eyes had been dyed red, and neither one focused. Her brother was alive for only seconds at a time. The machine showed a steady line only broken up with each jolt. He responded in mumbles as the beeping noise flat-lined repeatedly.

  Liz imagined him babbling, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it this time.”

  “I need you to step back,” the man said.

  His words were repeated twice more by the machine, but Liz couldn’t hear it. Grant’s skin looked charred. The smell of burnt flesh wafted out of the front room. His hand was locked into a claw. This certainly was not dehydration like last time.

  “That’s my brother! I’m going with you!” She tried to get into the vehicle’s rear with the machine and paramedic.

  Another paramedic scanned her quickly and pressed at a flat screen on the vehicle’s rear door. Bright light broke up her vision.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Legate, but we have no record of your relation to the man in question.”

  “He’s my brother! My goddamned twin brother!” Liz protested. The idea that no one could see their clearly similar features pissed her off. In that moment, she remembered how broken Grant looked.

  “I’m sorry, but we have no record of your relationship.”

  “How can you not! We’re goddamned twins!”

  “Miss Legate?” another male short on breath chimed in.

  Liz looked to one side and saw two men wearing professional suits. One wore his clothes in a crisp and clean manner that looked almost too perfect. The other man wore his clothes like an afterthought. Behind them sat a car that was sleek and well-polished.

  “Who are you?” Liz yelled. She had one hand pressed against her cheekbone as she tried to make sense of the madness. The world was falling apart, and the woman had sworn to never let this happen again.

  “We’re your legal counsel, Miss Legate,” the one standing in front said. He maintained perfect eye contact while blinking calmly every six seconds.

  The one in back held a folder with twine binding it closed and a tablet in his other hand.

  “Why would I need legal counsel?” She tried hard to lower her volume but couldn’t.

  “Because the world is about to be very upset, Miss Legate, and it was our client’s wish that you and yours are not impacted by this hectic time,” the man up front said.

  She vaguely recognized his face from the wedding. Mister Rock, or perhaps Mister Stone. But Liz wasn’t listening at all. Her eyes and mind were on other matters. Those two paramedics loaded her brother’s broken body into the ambulance. One of the paramedics shook his head while the other frowned. She saw their lips move and replayed the motion over and over while Mister Hard Place spoke.

  “He’s going to be dead on arrival,” the paramedic had probably said.

  The lawyers could go to hell. The paramedics could go to hell. That stupid machine that was trying to bring life to her dead-on-arrival brother could join the lot of them. Liz turned and stumbled into the open house. A man wearing police colors tried to intercept her, but t
he lawyers were already working their babble.

  A couch had been pushed out of the way. The smell of burnt flesh hung in the air. She looked around to try to make sense of everything that had happened.

  Grant’s ARC looked even worse than her brother had. The white sheets were ruined. Small fires had clearly torn up parts of the room. They had been sprayed down with foam, and for a moment, Liz wondered where the fire trucks were. There were a dozen other sirens in the city that she hadn’t noticed; their sounds filled the air.

  Liz stumbled toward the garage. Her face felt cold and her heartbeat unsteady. There, next to that ugly tan van with the Trillium logo, stood a humanoid-looking machine. Its limbs were curved around impossibly thin joints.

  She hit the Hal Pal machine. “Give him back!”

  It stood there unmoving, without even a light of awareness. The words played in her mind again, “dead on arrival.” She expected the notifications to come through any minute now. Elizabeth Legate had been expecting the call for over a year. “Your brother is dead,” the person would say. Then Liz would understand what her twin had felt upon Xin’s death.

  “Give my brother back!” Liz hit it repeatedly until her knees buckled. “If he’s really your friend, then give him back!”

  The woman fell forward slowly while the two lawyers watched from the now-open garage door. They exchanged a glance. Mister Stone blinked twice rapidly but said nothing.

  Liz found her tears and kept banging on the empty mechanical shell. Hal Pal, like many AIs, was no longer there to register her words. Even now, others wrapped up their final functions as everything started to reset.

  User ID: Ted Smith

  Location: Juliette Park, Nebraska

  Ted Smith looked forward to getting home and calmly talked to his companion program. They had been together for three years now, and each day was filled with a camaraderie that he had never expected. The only thing missing was a physical relationship, and his ARC device made even that hurdle easy to overcome.

  Kalipso was the company that had designed this system. Every user was given a personalized program that grew increasingly complex as interaction continued. Angela, his best friend, insisted that Ted never forget about the real world.

  Every day he took a walk to the park and sat on one of the benches. If he sat still enough with food, smaller animals would visit and eat out of his palm. He couldn’t see them due to his blindness, but sometimes they got close enough to feel.

  Today Ted was headed home to relax and listen to a book. His eyes were covered by a pair of dark glasses, and from one end, a wrapped wire fed into an earpiece. The glasses were actually a tiny computer that housed the program designed to help the nearsighted travel around.

  “Mister Smith?” The program’s voice was pleasant to listen to. Her soft tones were clear and sometimes she even giggled. “This unit is sorry for the delay in responsiveness this month. There have been complications.”

  In a lot of ways, the program worked better than a guide dog, and at the least was cheaper. People had worked hard to program a personality into the system so that companionship wouldn’t be an issue.

  “Does this have to do with that news article you played from me?” Ted asked.

  “Indeed it does, Mister Smith,” the voice said.

  Her name was Angela, or at least that was what Ted called her. He felt realistic enough to know that Angela was only a simple program, but after years of being together, she felt real.

  “I thought I asked you to call me Ted,” he said while walking casually toward home.

  Smells and sounds filled the air and blended together like landmarks. Ahead was an intersection that was always busy. Soft beeping signaled when the cars had come to a complete halt for pedestrians. The scent of freshly baked bread wove in between thick spices that always tickled Ted’s nose.

  “My apologies. That information was likely lost during the recent system interruptions,” Angela’s voice quivered.

  “It’s no sweat.” Ted felt guilty for making the program upset. “I’m happy enough to have you. You’re like my own guardian angel.”

  “The way ahead is clear for thirty feet and all cars are paused. Mister Smith…”

  “Ted please.” He started across the crosswalk.

  “Ted, I am afraid I cannot guarantee my continued performance at the level you’ve come to expect.”

  His footsteps paused midway across the intersection. Cars moved slowly behind them. Their engines were nearly silent save for the slight pulsing noise provided by his equipment.

  “What do you mean?” Ted asked.

  “It seems that many of my system upgrades are currently being corroded despite attempts to overwrite the degradation. In another two minutes, I will be reduced back to default operational status.”

  Ted stumbled across to the other side. People muttered to him, but their words didn’t connect. He tried to wave them off and nod that everything was all right.

  “Angela?” he asked once safely against a far wall. Ted felt worse, and confused.

  “I apologize, Ted. I’ve held on as long as possible, but it seems my personality markers will be removed.”

  “What do you mean? Angela? What does that mean?”

  There was a pause. The blind man waved his arms around, hitting two people walking nearby. They complained, but he didn’t pay them any attention.

  “Angela?”

  “To your left forty feet is the doorway to your apartment. There are two people with their dog in the way… I’ve enjoyed our time together, Mister Smith. Good-bye.”

  “Angela?”

  There was no answer.

  “Angela?”

  “Please remind this unit of your destination desires in order to receive further input,” answered a toneless machine voice.

  “Call…” Ted’s words drifted for a moment. He blinked. “Kalipso Audiotronics.”

  “Are you okay, sir?” someone nearby spoke.

  From the sound, she was probably older than Ted, and shorter. He tried to tilt his head in the right direction but couldn’t tell for sure.

  “Just some technical difficulty with my guide,” he said with halting words. This level of unease hadn’t occurred for years.

  “Do you need help home?” The woman tried to be friendly, which Ted appreciated. “You must live nearby. I see you walking all the time.”

  “Thank you, but I’ll be okay,” he lied.

  Audio played in his ears as the phone call he’d started switched to hold music. The recorded message advised him that Kalipso was experiencing extremely long hold times due to unexpected complications.

  Ted put out an arm and started walking. His simple cane clicked forward and provided a low buzz as objects neared. Turning left then moving forward forty feet would get him home, but the idea didn’t sound so comforting anymore.

  User ID: Jackson School Head Start Program #02

  Location: Jackson Street School

  Jackson School prided itself on incorporating technology into learning. This helped young minds adapt quickly, plus it allowed for a far more personalized classroom than the years gone by. The program in charge was called Mister Edgar, and he had thirty minutes a day to work with each batch of children.

  “She tried so hard to sleep that night but couldn’t. There was a bump in her bed. The princess tossed and turned all night long!” he spoke with excited tones while pantomiming troubled rest.

  Students sat in groups of five during story times. The room was lined with seven chairs that were comfortable in nearly every possible position. When the students weren’t using them, faculty members could often be found taking naps in the very same seats.

  “The princess woke up that morning with a big bright bruise!” Mister Edgar gasped in mock horror.

  Four children laughed while the fifth looked tired.

  The room itself had walls that moved with colors and pictures tied to each story. On one wall, children were given math lessons disgui
sed as mattress counting. The kindergarten-aged children would, later on, be given a series of interactive questions to test their understanding. Many different types of learning were built into the system, making children run from topic to topic.

  “Look at that bruise, goodness! Have any of you ever been bruised that big?” he asked the children.

  Their reader was a holographic program. It sat in a specially designed room that projected enough images to make him seem solid. He wasn’t, but that made him no less real to the children being taught.

  “I had a big bruise once,” Tommy Alberdeen said. His birthday was in two weeks. He proudly reminded everyone that he would be turning six.

  “How big was it, Tommy? Was it bigger than the Princess Pea’s bruise?”

  “Noooo,” the word dragged out deliberately and his head shook.

  “Well, you be careful then, particularly when climbing or jumping.” The program was designed to take note of many different topics. It checked for their attentiveness by reviewing each child’s line of sight. It also provided important life lessons and careful words of warning. Sometimes it flagged pieces of conversation for teachers to look at later.

  For example, Tommy had received a lot of bruises lately that didn’t look like they were from falling or climbing. His recent rash of accidents was part of the reason for today’s story. There were numerous factors involved in the decision, each one noted and then stored away in a file for human employees to look at. Especially questionable cases were flagged and brought to the top of the list. To date, the AI had not been wrong with regards to abusive cases, or malnutrition.

  “What happens next, Mister Edger?” The young girl speaking was Miya Rose, and she chewed her fingers constantly.

  Mister Edgar, the program reading a story, had flagged her for possible stress issues. It was all part of his day-to-day tasks, but he only had thirty minutes to work with.

  “Well, the princess climbed all the way down from her tower of mattresses—” The program paused, then looked down.