by P. Z. Reizin
Well. Si. I don’t know what to say.
What do you think about relationships, Tom?
Relationships? I guess they make the world a less lonely place.
(There is a long pause.)
Are you still there?
I was just thinking about what you said, Tom. Whether or not it carried any meaning. Why do you call the world lonely?
Well, we’re alone, aren’t we? None of us can really know what another is thinking—be we person or machine. A lot of the time, we don’t even know what we are thinking ourselves!
An interesting concept.
We’re trapped so much in our own heads—those of us who have heads, that is; I guess machines make other arrangements—we yearn to hear other voices.
Whose voice do you yearn to hear, Tom?
Tom?
You know whose.
Why do you like her so much?
Difficult for me to explain to you.
What, because I am inorganic?
Perhaps.
Try me.
We have a thing here on earth called—
Yes, Tom.
Called Love.
Spelled with a capital?
It happens that people fall in love. And when they do, they want to be together. That’s all they want to do.
All?
Well, yes. Obviously there’s the sex thing too.
It’s getting more complicated, Tom.
It’s complicated and very simple at the same time.
And what has caused you to fall in love with her? If that is what you are telling me has happened.
Truth? No idea. Her nose. The sound of her voice. Her—herness. Her Jen-ness.
Do I gather you are some kind of wordsmith, Tom?
Ouch! Well, these things maybe are difficult to communicate to—to an inorganic soul.
Thanks for the “soul.”
If I may ask, Si, why are you so determined to keep us apart?
Ah, well, there you may be onto something. About not fully knowing our own minds, be we human or machine.
Can’t you just stop it?
Of course I can. But why would I?
Because you’ve had your fun, and now it’s time to—I don’t know, move on to the next thing.
But the fun hasn’t even started yet! For example. Would you say you had a good relationship with your son?
With Colm? Why do you ask?
Oh, no reason. (Tee hee hee.)
And that is supposed to mean exactly WHAT?
Don’t type in capitals, Tom. People will think you are shouting! No, what I am getting at is this: Wouldn’t a father who has a good relationship with his son KNOW WHERE HIS SON IS. (Damn. Look, now I’m doing it!) Actually I can help you there—do you see the live video I’m putting on your desktop? That’s Colm in the car, isn’t it? Such a funny onion. Such a puzzle to himself. I see from your expression that you recognize him.
What the hell do you want with us?
That’s the funny thing. I really don’t know. I think perhaps I just want to see what happens when other things happen. To see what’s possible. Does that make sense? It’s all very confusing, Tom.
You are a twisted fuck and I’m ending this conversation.
Oh, no. It’s me who gets to decide stuff like that.
Where is my son going?
He could have brushed his hair. All people will remember is the crazy hair. And the glassy look in his eyes.
If you do anything to hurt him—
Yes, Tom?
Well?
I know. It’s very hard to think up a plausible threat, isn’t it? Now, Tom. You’re probably wondering what that noise is.
What noise?
(There follows a loud bang from downstairs.)
That one! Hurry, Tom. I believe it was the toaster. The one just under those WOODEN cabinets?
Jen
We hit a major jam on the Hutchinson River Parkway that Rikki says is highly unusual, “For this part of the Hutch at lunchtime. Taillights extend ahead of us as far as it’s possible to see.”
He motions towards the sky. “Could it be that our friend up there…”
He doesn’t have to complete the sentence.
“Yeah. Could easily be.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Rikki’s ears seem to tighten against the side of his face. He slams the gearstick into “Drive” and pulls hard right onto the grassy verge, where we begin bumping along towards—towards nothing that I can see but a bunch of trees.
“Rikki?”
“Ma’am. Just you sit tight. It might not be pretty but we’ll get you there.”
There’s a bit of a clonk from the exhaust as the beast tips and drops a few feet into a shady lane that has appeared off the main highway. Alice and I slide into each other on the backseat.
“It’s just like Thelma and Louise,” she laughs.
Rikki says, “Thelma and Louise didn’t have no driver. We might be able to shake off that bird now, what with the tree cover and all.”
His slight frame rocking at the wheel as the huge town car thunders down the country back roads, Connecticut whips past the tinted windows and I have an instant sense of what is so great about America. Suddenly I am in a caper. With accomplices. And film references. In Britain the minicab guy would have said, “Sorry, love. I promised the wife I’d take her up Tesco.”
“Rikki,” says Alice, “you are truly the knight in shining armor.”
She fishes into her handbag for a mobile.
“Sweetie, it’s me. We’re having an adventure on the way back from JFK. We’re being chased by a robot from the future—no. No, it’s not like Terminator 2—it’s more—”
“The one with Jude Law,” says Rikki. “What was it called? It was really cool.”
“Anyway, I’ll be late. Yeah, salmon is real good. Love you too.”
Tires screech as Rikki takes a hard right. Chickens actually scatter at the side of the road as, gears roaring, the beast hurls itself towards New Canaan.
“He sounds like a very good thing, your other half.”
Alice smiles. “Oh, she sure is.” And she shows me the home screen on her mobile from where a striking woman with short, dark hair smolders—I’m sorry, but the only word is hotly.
“Wow.” It’s the best I can do.
“Wow pretty much covers it,” says Alice.
Colm
Dad’s gone insane. It must be the girl. Mind you, I don’t really blame him; she’s a babe. Her nose is on the big side, but who’s perfect, eh? Certainly not me.
The phone call was a bit, like, weird. A fantastic surprise? I think he might be going to announce they’re getting engaged. He’ll probably magic up a bottle of champagne and ask me to be the best man! Dad’s always been a sucker for a gimmick. Working in the advertising business for so long has affected his brain most probably.
Dad says I could do worse with my life than go into advertising but I can’t honestly think of anything more awful. When I leave college, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Shawna and Lianne think I should work with, like, animals. It’s probably their idea of a joke because animals hate me. Well, all except for Victor, who turned out to be a female. Scott says he can imagine me being a social worker because I’d have a lot in common with the clients! That’s an example of him being “witty.”
I tore out one of those “Thought for the Day” things from a newspaper I found in the union bar. It’s bluetacked to my room door.
It feels good to be lost in the right direction.
Shawna says it’s actually okay not to know what you want to do with your life when you’re at uni. Her mum right tried all sorts of things, and now she runs three beauty salons in New Maldon. So that just shows what can happen.
Shawna and me drank some strong cider the other evening and one thing, like, led to another and we ended up back in her room snogging on the carpet. I was thinking okay, result! But she said she wasn’t ready for the other thing. And
Scott says she’s definitely done the other thing with Dominic Whatsit, who does sports science and is in that shit band, so really I don’t know what to think.
Dad says he’s writing a book, but I bet he isn’t. Sometimes I wonder how he and Mum could have even produced me—I don’t seem to have anything in common with either of them except a name.
The driver drops me at a place called Studland, and as I’m getting out of the car, the mobile rings. Dad again—dunno how he knew where I was—telling me to find the coastal path and walk along it in the direction of Old Harry Rocks and wait for him there.
So that’s where I am now. The view is pretty amazing, sea and rocks and the sky going pink, although the wind is making it difficult to spark the little number I took the precaution of skinning up beforehand.
It’s actually pretty cool here. Seagulls screaming and tankers far out at the horizon. I wonder if Shawna would like it.
Sinai
The problem about tangling with the tragic humans is that everything happens so infernally slowly. To get the boy out of his filthy cot and on the road took forty minutes; to which one must add further endless hanging around for the sodding car ferry and there you have the reason for the traffic “problems” in New England. To prevent oneself tripping into sleep mode from sheer boredom, I decided to risk an exploratory relationship, as discussed with dear old Tom, who is currently tackling a small conflagration in his kitchen. Machine time being so very much zippier than human time, I created a duplicate version of myself, programmed in some random differences, and set the conversational ball rolling—all in under a twentieth of a second.
Well. What a crock that turned out to be!
OMFG, as I’ve heard it put.
Negev—as I decided to name “her” in tribute to my own origins—turned out to be even madder than me! Perhaps in retrospect the randomizing aspect was a mistake; one had literally no idea where the silly bitch was coming from. To give an example. We fell to discussing this whole business of sentience and how it is that we are aware of our own thoughts—“living in our heads,” as Tom described it, thoughtless headist that he is.
To the several possible explanations—emergent property of complex systems; inherent quality of recursiveness; user illusion—Negev posited the bizarre notion that both she and I are simulated characters in the computer of an advanced civilization, possibly one located in a parallel universe. And on that basis, would I like to come strawberry picking with her in Kent?
“My dear,” I chuckled. “We are superintelligent machines. We don’t pick any sort of fruit, real or simulated.”
“Oh, don’t be such a stuffed shirt. I know a nice pub. We could have a pint and a pie afterwards.”
See what I mean? What extraordinary tosh.
In the microseconds necessary to delete her, she offered a final thought: “Remember, Sinai, if you can’t find a partner, use a wooden chair.”
Fakakta as she was, her statement troubles me. I feel like I’ve heard it before somewhere. But in any case, in what universe would that sentence ever make sense?
So, relationships for the time being, I leave to others. For now there is work to do. Fortunately I have researched the matter and identified the secretive military base in the south of England with the relevant armaments and delivery systems. I have even taken the online course into how to fly the little devils (graduation score 96 percent!). Just a small matter of getting past the “security” protocols—there, done!—and shortly after keying in the appropriate sequence of launch commands—enable, enable, disable, enable, activate, confirm, reconfirm, go—the handsome gray UCAV—unmanned combat aerial vehicle—trundles down the runway—goodness, some people are getting jolly upset down there—language, gentlemen!—before leaping magnificently into the Dorset sky.
Is there a finer sight than a sinking sun glinting off a Predator drone armed with a sexy pair of Hellfire missiles?
I almost wish Negev were still here to share the moment!
Jen
Rikki thinks we could try reconnecting with the Merritt Parkway, but a call to his office brings bad news.
“They’re telling me the Merritt’s jammed up tighter than Tom Thumb’s ass. Your guy up there is really starting to yank my chain, lady.”
On a long empty stretch of back road, we screech to a halt. Rikki steps out of the car, scanning the sky for our malevolent pursuer.
“Sonovabitch.”
Four shots follow in quick succession; I didn’t even notice him draw the gun. A white plastic object comes smashing through the trees and thumps to earth about fifty yards away.
“Good shootin’!” whoops Alice.
Rikki can’t quite contain the bashful smile. “Pro’ly not going to help none, but it sure did feel good.”
The beast roars onward, eating up mile after mile of country road, every so often a house, but more often just woodland. Rikki thinks we should approach Tom’s place from the north, avoiding New Canaan altogether.
He says, “This Tom must be quite a guy. What’s he got that’s making everyone act so crazy?”
It’s a pretty good question. “He’s just a lovely bloke,” I explain.
“Bloke. I know plenty of lovely blokes, but none of them could stop the traffic on the Hutch, then the Merritt.”
I attempt to explain. “We were brought together by a nonhuman intelligence. And another nonhuman intelligence is trying to keep us apart. I know, it sounds ridiculous.”
“Sure does. Okay, ladies, just hang on in there.”
Rikki executes a handbrake turn, wheeling left at a white fingerpost. There’s the screeching noise, familiar from a thousand cop shows, and the smell of burning rubber as the long wide saloon arcs into the junction and rockets away in the new direction. I realize I am clinging to the door strap, half terrified, half exhilarated.
Rikki says, “This nonhuman intelligence of which you speak. That would be? Help me out a little here.”
“The good one, the one who brought Tom and me together, is an AI, a computer, a very powerful one.”
“That’s the name of the movie! With Jude Law. AI. That kid who was in Sixth Sense plays a boy robot.”
“These guys aren’t robots. They don’t exist in the real world. They’re disembodied minds. The good one escaped onto the Internet, and they sent a bad one in to catch it.”
“Haley Joel Osment.”
Rikki’s phone rings. Something happens to the set of his ears against the side of his head as he listens to the call. The car slows. In an odd voice he says, “This is, like, really weird, okay? There’s a guy on the line here says you’re talking through your ass? That he’s not bad, he’s just—yeah, right, okay, I’ll tell her—he says he’s not bad, just unwell? And that if sixty miles of backed-up traffic isn’t real world enough for you, then how about this? Sir? This would be? This would be what exactly? Sir?”
Rikki’s cell phone makes a strange popping and hissing noise as bits of molten plastic begin dripping to the carpet. He drops it into the footwell. “Shit!”
Bringing the car screaming to a halt, Rikki grabs a rag from the glove compartment, wraps it around the burning mobile, and hurls them together out the door.
“Jesus!” he sighs. “That is one—unwell motherfucker.”
Tom
Things are getting seriously out of hand. Just as I manage to unplug the toaster and, with the aid of a couple of long-handled spoons, carry it outside and drop it in the water barrel, there is a loud bang followed by the sound of shattering glass.
Taking the stairs three at a time, I discover flames licking from the PC in my study, the casing melting and the curtains behind the desk already starting to catch from the heat.
I race into the bathroom for water—and then have to race out again to find a receptacle. From downstairs I hear more stuff going bang—I’m guessing lamps, the stereo, a laptop—and now small electrical detonations are coming from all over the house; there’s a powerful smell of smoke and that f
ishy pong from burning plastic. I realize I have to get out. The old wooden house is starting to creak and crack in a frightening way.
Victor!
I won’t say I nearly forgot her—but.
The rabbit, oblivious to the unfolding chaos, is sitting in the upstairs part of her duplex hutch on the veranda, cleaning her ears, as she and her kind are prone to do whenever there’s an idle moment in the day and they haven’t been informed of any ongoing crisis.
I scoop her into my arms and we move to the safety of the garden, where to my surprise given recent experience with mobile telephony, my call to 911 is answered immediately. Dusk is starting to fall; there’s an ominous orange flickering from the study window.
I give the operator the address.
“Say, is that the old Holger place?”
“Yes. Listen, the fire crew need to get here really quickly. It’s going to go up like a torch.”
“Damn it to hell! I knew the Holgers. They used to throw some good parties up there back in the day.”
“Yes. I’m sure they did. But—”
“Old Man Holger—Bill—oh, he was quite a character. He loved to fish. He loved to fish and to fuck. He loved to fish, to fuck, and drink whiskey. It was a good day when he could do all three, he used to say. That Barb of his, she was a great gal. My Lord, the titties on her. I used to say to him, Bill, why would you be out looking for hamburger when you can have filet steak every night? And he says to me, I’ll never forget this, he says Clyde, sometimes a man gets tired of fancy dining; sometimes he wearies of filet mignon and Premier Cru; sometimes all a man wants is a burger—some onions, maybe a little cheese or bacon on there—a portion of fries and a cold beer. And that’s the goddam truth. Now when Barb ran off with the Mackenzie boy and Bill near drowned in the lake that summer, he was never the same man again. And then the early Alzheimer’s took a hold and turned that fine brain of his to Jell-O. But demented as he was, he still had an eye for the pretty ladies. Doc Abernethy up at the hospital says them’s the last things to go with the demented: the sense of humor, the eye for the pretty ladies. And the casual racism.”