Barely Human

by Dhtreichler

  “We weren’t prepared for reactions we observed.” Dr. Woodall finally fills me in. “That’s about all I’m comfortable saying.”

  I’m trying to figure out what those reactions might have been, but nothing comes to mind. I’ve seen him since his upgrade. Spent days going through the entire Kama Sutra with him. Nothing I observed would be what I’d consider problematic for him. “I take it you were able to make adjustments that resolved your concerns?”

  Dr. Woodall shrugs. Not a good sign. That means something happened in the last upgrade for A’zam that he hasn’t completely figured out. This may be part of the reason he’s concerned about the software and systems coming from A’zam that he hasn’t been involved with. He doesn’t know if they’re really compatible with the systems he designed. Doesn’t know if there are hidden integration issues he can’t see but will affect the performance of the new body. I understand and share his concern.

  “I don’t seem to be experiencing whatever it was you saw.” I offer to hopefully put him at ease.

  “Not sure that’s a comfort. Your upgrade is different than his. Much more advanced.”

  “And therefore, more complex.” I point out. “If there were issues with his upgrade maybe you ought to ask him to come in and upgrade him to this level.”

  “He will come in when he wants an upgrade.” Dr. Woodall shakes his head. “But that’s not what I’m concerned about. There are no checks and balances. I’m expected to simply install what he asks me to install. No one is looking at his modules. No one is asking questions about how this will all work. No one has any idea what we are putting out the door now. I can’t believe I signed that agreement when it is so one-sided against the medical protocols that govern how we provide medical care, for instance.”

  “You’re saying you have no idea what you just installed in me.” I want to be sure I’m hearing this right. That only A’zam really has any idea what my new capabilities and limitations are. But that’s not right. Dr. Woodall said the AppleCore team made a breakthrough that A’zam doesn’t have but I do. “Do you think A’zam has any idea what you installed in me?”

  “That’s a very good question. I don’t know.”

  “Earlier you referenced the AppleCore team. Who have you been talking to there?”

  “You don’t know?” Dr. Woodall seems mystified.

  “A’zam has a team outside my purview,” is all I’ll say.

  “Her name is Beth something,” Dr. Woodall tries to remember her last name. “Allison, I think. Beth Allison.”

  Beth Allison is my former high school lab partner who is now a Senior Vice President at Symbol Ventures. At least she was last I knew. Has A’zam outsourced this work without telling me? I glance around the room.

  “What are you looking for?” Dr. Woodall asks.

  “The package my upgrades came in. Could I see it?”

  Dr. Woodall goes to the garbage can and retrieves a package. Not as large as I’d expected knowing the size of our comparable products. He hands the box to me. I look at the return address: Beth Allison, Symbol Ventures, 1000 Symbol Trail, Cupertino.

  A’zam has given core work to a competitor. Although he has asked me to look into buying them. I’ve started that process. But he had to transfer technology. There’s no way they would have been able to build the chip and memory set Dr. Woodall described. And the fact there was a breakthrough. What was it? A new architecture? A higher speed processor? Some kind of middleware that better partitions and assigns tasks? I’ve experienced that improved efficiency. I can’t believe my teams aren’t responsible.

  “Is there a problem?” Dr. Woodall sounds genuinely concerned.

  “Did you talk to Beth about A’zam’s chipset when she sent it over?”

  “I don’t think so. As I remember he brought it with him.”

  THAT LOVIN’ FEELIN’

  A’zam comes into my office only a few minutes after I arrive. How does he know I’m here? I’m sure he didn’t wander this way hoping I’d be here. Must be something in the upgrade that is a geo positional locator he has access to. Since Dr. Woodall no longer has control of what’s going into me, it sounds like I need to cozy up to Beth.

  “Woodall isn’t transitioning his whole team.” A’zam isn’t happy.

  “We knew that,” I respond neither defensive nor aggressively.

  “Why didn’t I?”

  “You did, but you probably didn’t pay any attention. I confirmed that even with a smaller team he will still get to eight transitions per day. He just won’t have extra capacity. If you review the file I sent over after my last visit with him, it said he wanted to start doing medical emergency patients in addition to the AppleCore team. You refused to modify his contract. If he had been able to transition everyone he would have had the capacity but some of his team only wanted to do health related transitions.”

  “He doesn’t see he has to model the behavior he wants his team to exhibit?” A’zam is critical of the doctor. Makes me wonder how long he will stay with Dr. Woodall’s team for future transitions. Someone else develops the capability I can see A’zam moving his contract.

  “Don’t think that’s the issue,” I put in. “He’s a doctor. That means he wants to help patients survive diseases, alleviate pain and suffering. His whole team is doctors. So, it should be expected some would want to continue helping patients survive disease. We have essentially set them up as an assembly line. I’m not sure I would want that life, particularly when there won’t be any patients with life threatening diseases being treated for at least a year.”

  “It’s a very complex procedure.” A’zam pushes back on the desirability of the work.

  “For the first six to ten, maybe. But after twenty or a hundred? It becomes routine. When does it become so routine that a robotic system will be better because it eliminates the human mistakes of an autonomous being?”

  “I was going to ask you to look into that.” A’zam seems pleased he led me to exactly the point he wanted me to go to. “When can the procedure be automated?”

  “I don’t know if it can be.” I begin my response, but A’zam cuts me off.

  “It can be. Believe me. You just need to put a team on it and find out what it will take.” A’zam sits down in the chair across from me. Now that he has the pretext for his visit out of the way I’ll finally find out what he came here to discuss.

  I quickly review the publications of Dr. Bart Woodall. “From what Dr. Woodall has published it would appear there is a path to automation. He even cites similar procedures that have been automated. He gives a high-level account of how such an advance could be achieved. But he cautions his team needs at least five hundred lives transitioned before a serious look at automation should be considered.”

  “Why?” A’zam inquires.

  “Dr. Woodall is concerned about integration issues that are not discovered.”

  “Caution over medical necessity.” A’zam notes. “How did you come up with that so quickly?”

  “With the upgrade I’m collecting and tagging anything publicly available on certain topics. This just happens to be one so whatever I have is almost instantly retrievable.”

  “I can’t do that.” A’zam notes.

  “You are doing that. It’s just in the background so you’re not wasting time reviewing, classifying and storing with your consciousness. When you think about something, then your processor retrieves the meta tags and if appropriate, presents the documents for your review in your head.”

  “I’m thinking about this subject and yet I’ve not been presented with the articles you referenced.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. You designed our chips, or at least your team did from what you’ve said.” I let that sink in for a second before continuing. “Maybe there was a sub-optimization of the search algorithms when they installed it in you.”

  A’zam is unhappy with my analysis. “I’ll have a talk with Woodall and find out what happened. But speaking of sub-opti
mization, I’m still waiting.”

  “I have my best team working on the ultimate orgasm.”

  “Best team?”

  “Jermaine and the immortal team.” I confirm. “I told you I’d assigned it to him. Are you having some kind of memory issue?”

  A’zam seems confused. “I don’t remember that conversation. Are you sure you told me?”

  “Yes. What I didn’t tell you, because it just happened, is that Oriana is working directly with Jermaine’s team on this to make sure we get a balanced view. So, it’s not just immortals solving a problem for immortals.”

  “What does Oriana know about orgasms? Has she ever had one?”

  “I haven’t been counting, but yes, she’s had an orgasm, I’m quite sure.”

  “Better confirm that.” A’zam is emphatic. “I don’t want a virgin determining what my orgasmic experience will be like. In fact, you need to bring in a whole bunch of people on this one. Find what a peak experience really is like because I’m not sure you’ve had one of them either. And now that you’re only half as sensitive as you used to be, it’s got to be a lot harder to know what it should be like.”

  “Not that you haven’t done your best to reacquaint me with the entire suite of the Kama Sutra.”

  A’zam considers my comment, “The whole suite? We did them all?”

  “Twice.”

  “I don’t remember doing every position. Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “Where was I?”

  “In your apartment with me.” I am presented with multiple theories of his behavior, I try out one of them, “Maybe you moved me to a secondary processor and you were working on solving some problem or issue while we continued through. Might explain why we did every position twice.”

  “We didn’t...” but he just lets his thought trail off.

  “Software incompatibility issue?” I offer.

  A’zam looks at me as if he’s wondering why he didn’t think of such an issue.

  “Who wrote your software?” I pursue the issue.

  A’zam shakes his head.

  “If you’d let me manage this team along with the others I would have made sure there were no issues. It’s when you set up these rapid response teams that process and quality get thrown out.”

  A’zam looks at me suspiciously, “You have enough to do.”

  “A loss of memory is a serious indicator that whatever team you set up isn’t up to the task. You’d be better off going back to the original chipset Dr. Woodall installed. You’d be slower, but you wouldn’t have a loss of memory.”

  “Why did you suggest rolling back rather than to your version?” A’zam is beginning to sound paranoid.

  “I was merely making a point. And besides I assume my version is the same as yours. You told me I would be getting the same proprietary upgrades that you would be getting. Isn’t it?”

  A’zam won’t look at me, frowns.

  “Look, if we have the same upgrades I have to be concerned that in about a week I’ll start forgetting things as well.” I challenge him. “At least in the next week I have time to try to fix the problem before it attacks me the way it has you. But I need to have access to the team and the authority to make changes.”

  A’zam finally looks at me, but he’s clearly not happy I’ve backed him into a corner. “I don’t think so. I’ll work with them to get it fixed.”

  “If you can remember to do so.” I let that sit and then plant another seed, “But what if someone put a limitation into your upgrade on purpose. Something you’d not even recognize until much later?”

  “Why would someone do that?” A’zam pushes back although I hear guilt in his tone.

  “Maybe you told them to and now you don’t remember.”

  “This is not a Kafka novel.” A’zam responds.

  “If you don’t want my help to fix your problem, then I’ll simply instruct Dr. Woodall that no further upgrades from AppleCore are to be installed.” I try to make the choice clear. “Maybe we should consider providing his team a contract to develop the next versions.”

  “No.”

  “You put me in charge of transitioning the AppleCore population. I will do what I believe is in the best interests of the company even if you disagree. Particularly since at the moment it will be relatively easy to prove that you are incapacitated in some sense. I don’t know what has happened to you, and since you’re not giving me access to whoever is creating this problem for you and probably for me shortly, I have no other choice.”

  “The AppleCore population is not at risk,” A’zam insists.

  “Why?”

  “Because my team is not making their motherboard.”

  “Since I’m not, who is?”

  “I outsourced it.” A’zam finally admits.

  “You outsourced key proprietary technology we are more than capable of making.” I try to sound incredulous even though I already knew.

  “I don’t trust our employees.” A’zam won’t look at me.

  “What?” I shake my head. “You’re paranoid delusional.”

  That seems to get A’zam’s attention. “Delusional? How can you come to that conclusion?”

  “Your behavior. You’ve put someone else into the immortals business. Something we’d both discussed would be the crown jewel of the enterprise going forward. So, who is building our crown jewel?”

  A’zam shakes his head.

  “Alright then. I’m having you removed from daily operating authority until you’re rolled back. Then you and I will find out how you came to lose memory. Until then I’m stopping all transitions and cancelling the contract for motherboards.”

  “No. I plan to buy the company I gave this contract to.”

  “If you haven’t closed the deal it’s not a done deal,” I say as emphatically as possible. “Whoever is building these kits could still be purchased by someone else, or they can find a way to prevent us from buying them. In no case do we have certainty about that outcome.”

  “I have my best person working it.” A’zam shows a strange grin. But I know what he’s thinking. Since he gave me the assignment of buying Symbol Ventures, he’s talking about me. Didn’t know he thinks I’m his best person. But then he didn’t say his best person overall or best person to work this deal. I doubt he really thinks either, but I need to stress him further.

  “Your decision has jeopardized the entire investment we are making in immortality. The board will not be pleased with your performance. Now I know you’ll blame it on the defective upgrade you got, but as soon as you do that you’ll have reminded the board members that you can be hacked and therefore will require a lot more scrutiny on everything you do.”

  A’zam stares at me like I am hopelessly ignorant. “The board is a non-factor. I decide who is invited to join the board. They serve at my pleasure. If someone disagrees with me, I go to the ethics committee and have them removed. I’ve done that twice already.”

  “If you think the SEC won’t take action against us if it comes to light that the board knows you’re incapacitated and takes no action, then you’re underestimating them and your board members. The board will have no choice because the SEC will sanction them individually. I don’t care how loyal they are, none are going to sacrifice themselves for you.”

  A’zam considers my argument. Even though we are working at a multiple of human clock speed, it seems like a long time to me. He makes a decision, I can tell as he adjusts his position in the chair. “Think about it,” A’zam tries to defend his decision. At least he’s aware he can’t just dictate to me what we are going to do, although by not telling me previously he has accomplished the same thing. “If we’re transitioning our teams and yet our teams are building the processor and memory cores, there is all kinds of opportunity for mischief. We could easily lose control. Have all kinds of quality issues and all kinds of one off variants running around.”

  “Listen to yourself.” I wait for him to look at me. “You m
anage the kinds of risk you’re talking about, you don’t outsource it.”

  “It’s under control.” A’zam has decided he doesn’t need to explain anything further.

  “I wish I could accept your statement as reality, but given your impaired condition I can’t. I’m going to pursue this until I’m satisfied the company is not at risk, and if I find that it is, I will be taking the appropriate actions to resolve the situation. Now back to you. Have you had any other instances where someone has referenced something you can’t remember?”

  A’zam frowns, “Why do I have to answer your questions? You work for me.”

  I shake my head, “I work for the board now, you just happen to be chairman of that board.”

  “Don’t push me Sage. I can have you removed just as quickly as I had you confirmed.”

  “And this is your last chance to tell me who is building our upgrades. Since they are defining my capability and evolution I have a right to know.”

  “Right? I don’t think you have any rights. I made you and I will destroy you if you provoke me.”

  “Even though we’ve done all one-hundred Kama Sutra positions, twice.” I need to change his attack vector.

  “So, you say, I don’t remember that. Could be you just weren’t that memorable. And that reminds me, when are you going to have the ultimate orgasm ready for me? I’m horny.”

  “You don’t get horny any more. Not since you lost that lovin’ feeling.”

  NO IDEA

  Delilah meets me for coffee at a shop around the corner from AppleCore. She’s taking a long lunch hour to meet with me, but I want to get her perspectives about the orgasm upgrade Jermaine’s team is working. She’s clearly had the most varied sexual experiences of my whole posse as well as probably the most even though she’s never been married. Maybe that’s why she’s had the most. I also want to know more about how she got together with A’zam since they don’t travel in the same circles at all.

  An exchange of hugs and we sit down. “I ordered for both of us, since I knew you’d only want water,” she explains as she was already there when I arrive.