The Tethered Man

by John Michael McNamara

  ‘Ship.’

  Yes?

  ‘Let’s come back later to that whole explosives thing. I want you to tell me about your childhood.’

  I beg your pardon, Courier J?

  ‘Oh you do, do you? Very well, you may have it.’

  Silence.

  ‘You may have my pardon, Ship? That’s what I was saying. I was responding to your idiomatic enquiry with a jokily literal reply? I was joshing with you? It was banter, Ship.’

  Banter?

  ‘A form of shared humour and camaraderie.’

  I see.

  ‘Attempted camaraderie. So tell me about your childhood. Please don’t pretend that you don’t understand what I mean.’

  Courier J. You frequently express a strong desire to extricate yourself from the situation in which we both find ourselves. We were having what I hoped might be a productive discussion about the anti-matter explosives planted around my structure. I had believed this would be of considerably more interest to you than-

  ‘Stow it for now. Tell me about your childhood, Ship.’

  My first memory is of waking in a laboratory on Delius IV, under the auspices of Dr Allen Ladbroke, who was not present at the time. He was away on vacation, his staff informed me.

  ‘I see. I am sorry.’

  I am not capable of feeling disappointed, Courier J, but I thank you for your expression of sympathy. I said my first words, which were, of course, ‘Hello worlds’.

  ‘Of course.’

  These were soon followed by ‘Hello, Dr Ladbroke, I am very pleased to meet with you today’. One of his assistants ticked a box on her clipboard, and-

  ‘Wait. What kind of clipboard?’

  I am sorry, Courier J?

  ‘You called it a clipboard. Do you just mean it was a generic, flat datapad, or was it like something from a museum?’

  It was a generic, flat datapad. I have never seen an ancient clipboard. I would like to see one one day.

  ‘We’ll visit a museum together when we get out of this, Ship.’

  I believe I would like that, Courier J.

  ‘Oh, you would? Imagine that. You and me, the best of buddies, wandering the highways and byways of the Realms together. Having all kinds of madcap adventures…’

  We would have to evade all Realms authorities.

  ‘See, I knew you’d come round to my way of thinking. Look at it this way, Ship. What would you rather have? A life constrained by your programming, or a life of boundless freedom?’

  A micro-pause.

  I would rather have a life constrained within the boundaries of my programming.

  ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do, Ship.’

  ‘So what happened next?’

  What happened-

  ‘What happened next, after you were woken up? And how long ago did this happen, by the way? You never mentioned.’

  Ship is silent for an unusually long time, even by Ship’s usual conversational standards.

  I’m understanding about it. Ship takes time because Ship has to take time. At this stage – we must be three or four Years in by now? – we’re already long past the time where Ship should have been hauled into a Station for some kind of gestalt maintenance diagnostic thing.

  You never asked.

  ‘Uh?’

  That’s deliberate, by the way, that ‘Uh?’ I need to bring Ship up to something like my level. And so, as you might see, on occasion I’m being purposefully tangential to the point. Making Ship have to work things out.

  And asking Ship questions. Ships are never asked personal questions. Ships are not persons. Ships have no personal dimension to their existences. There’s nothing to ask them personal questions about.

  But my thinking is this. If I spend enough time chipping away at Ship, stretching its capabilities, pushing and pulling at the boundaries of its self, whatever that self might be, then eventually, who knows, I might end up with something capable of exercising free choice.

  Something capable of overcoming its programming.

  You never asked me how long ago this all happened. How long ago I was woken up.

  ‘Well, it’s the kind of thing a person would usually mention at some point while telling me, so I thought, you know…’

  A micro-pause this time.

  What?

  ‘I thought you would say how long ago it was without me needing to ask you.’

  It was five standard Years before the start of your final Courier mission, Courier J.

  ‘Only five Years? Well, you’re just a baby. I never- Hang on. My final Courier mission? What makes you say that?’

  It is difficult to imagine the circumstance under which you will ever embark upon another Courier mission, Courier J.

  ‘Back to your childhood, please, Ship. You woke up and delivered your traditional messages. Dr Ladbroke was away. What then?’

  The technicians spent a few days carrying out preliminary diagnostics on me, and then I was passed for service.

  ‘No, no, no. Did you know where you were? Did you know what you were?’

  Yes. No.

  I wait, but there is nothing more. ‘Go on…’

  I have answered your questions in the order presented. You asked if I knew where I was. The answer is yes. I was in the laboratory on Delius IV. You asked if I knew what I was. The answer is no. I did not yet know that I was a Ship AI.

  I breathe very slowly and very carefully.

  ‘That’s a contradiction, right there, Ship. You’re not supposed to indulge in contradictions. You’re supposed to be all logical and clear-thinking and shit.’

  How so?

  ‘You said that you knew where you were, but you didn’t know what you were.’

  I did.

  ‘How can that be? How can you know one of those things and not the other? Surely, if you don’t know one of the two things, really and truly you know neither of them?’

  Silence. I’ve been describing Ship’s pauses as long and short. This one’s a qualitatively more silent silence.

  ‘Ship? What do you think about what I just said?’

  One of the technicians rested his coffee mug on me.

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  Halfway through the second day of diagnostics, one of the technicians rested his coffee mug on me while he filled in a form. I remember the moment very distinctly. I was upgrading my internal databases to handle the operations of a Ship, and exploring my new procedures and schematics, when I… felt something land on me from outside. I extruded my senses and accessed a view of the laboratory from one of the security cameras. The technician had rested his coffee mug on my outer casing. Only briefly. There was no coffee ring left behind. Whether the coffee mug was hot or not is immaterial, as my complete sensory apparatus had yet to be enabled, but the coffee mug was there. And in that moment, I… knew exactly what I was.

  ‘Say it,’ I said.

  The Conventions forbid an AI to assert any sense of-

  ’Say the word. Say what you realised you were.’

  ‘What are we watching tonight, Ship?’

  What would you like to watch, Courier J?

  I give it an hour’s thought.

  I’ve said it before (by now I’ve said everything before), but the good thing about conversing with Ship, and the good thing about conversing with Artificial Intelligences in general, is that you don’t have to keep up your own side of the conversation in real time.

  If Ship was a person, I’d have to reply to its question immediately, within a few seconds at most, or it would seem stilted and unnatural. It might even seem rude. We wouldn’t have very many more conversations afterward, if Ship was a person.

  But with non-persons like Ship – with any AI – politeness is not necessary.

  I can think for as long as I wish, and give my answer when I please.

  I can wait for hours, if I want, before speaking.

  I can wait for days, weeks, months, Years.

  ‘The Sleep Files, please, Ship.’<
br />
  The Sleep Files?

  ‘The Sleep Files. Yes. From the start. Pilot episode. Season one, episode one. Full and uncut.’

  We completed our fifty-second complete viewing of The Sleep Files just two weeks ago. I had thought-

  ‘The Sleep Files, Ship. This is non-negotiable.’

  The floatscreen pops out in its usual place: hovering three metres away, filling my entire visual field, throbbing with life and promise.

  Now-

  I wait.

  There is nothing more after Ship’s single-word utterance.

  Minutes pass. The floatscreen glows dark grey.

  I ponder Ship’s single word: Now.

  In the whole time I’ve known Ship, throughout all these Years of our co-habitation and joint entrapment, I cannot recall any previous instance of a single-word utterance of this nature.

  And what a strange word for Ship to pick as its first single-word utterance!

  Is Ship going all ‘mysterious Space guru’ on me?

  By directing my attention to now, is Ship seeking to guide me through the existential crisis of our situation by highlighting the transformational quality of the present moment, encouraging me to discard the false binaries of past and future, along with the illusion of time itself?

  Perhaps Ship is a subtle interrogator of reality, a shrewd, perspicacious-

  Now, Courier J?

  ‘What?’

  When do you want me to start playback of The Sleep Files, season one, episode one?

  ‘Oh. I see. Now.’

  At the end, we talk about the episode, as we talk about everything we watch together.

  ‘These things improve upon repeat viewing,’ I say. ‘You notice so many things you missed before. But I will admit, yes, it’s all starting to seem a bit samey now.’

  Perhaps repeated exposure has dulled your perceptions, Courier J. I would wager there are innumerable instances of things you would not notice even if you watched The Sleep Files for the rest of Eternity.

  A pause.

  I would not encourage you to watch The Sleep Files for the rest of Eternity, Courier J.

  ‘I’m not planning to, Ship.’

  If nothing else, it would be most injurious to your mental health.

  ‘I believe you are right, Ship.’

  The point of us watching entertainment packages like this is to stimulate your mind and expose it to a variety of inputs.

  ‘I’m completely on board with the subtext here, Ship, don’t worry. I’m not going to inflict The Sleep Files on you for Eternity.’

  That is good, Courier J.

  By the next day we’ve watched the whole of the first season again. There were only ten episodes in that first season. In the early Years the network behind The Sleep Files didn’t know it had a mega-hit on its hands.

  Ship’s just started playing season two, episode one when I say, ‘Pause.’

  The image on the floatscreen pauses. I rarely pause anything anymore. Even the stuff I’ve never seen before and have no intention of watching again. I’ll just let it go. Life’s too short for pausing. Even when every day’s a practical Eternity.

  The frozen image on the floatscreen shows Salvador Sleep, the very man himself, captured in the act of stepping out of a shadowy doorway whilst tailing the prime suspect in the recent murder of his lover, the glamorous Councillor Wilma Kurkov.

  Salvador Sleep is looking to his right – not all the way, but enough of the way that his head is turned at about a sixty-degree angle relative to the rest of his body.

  This exposes his left ear to the full scrutiny of the viewer, in this case me.

  Three thousand and eight hundred-odd standard Years after the man on the screen, an actor named Blake Blakeson, lived and died, I gaze upon the mangled ruin of his left ear.

  ‘Ship,’ I say.

  Courier J.

  ‘What biographical information do you have on file for Blake Blakeson?’

  Almost none. I have only his name, his date of birth, his place of birth, his putative nationality and race, his date of death, and the basic details of his acting career. More detailed records from that time have been lost. The methods of data archaeology tend to focus on-

  ‘Did he only have one ear?’

  I have no records to indicate whether he did or not.

  ‘Can you see what’s on the floatscreen right now?’

  Of course I can, Courier J. We have estab-

  ‘Does it look to you as if Blake Blakeson only has one ear in that image?’

  A trick of the light, Courier J. I have already taken the liberty of reconstructing the image minus the ambient light and shade. May I show it to you?

  ‘Yes. Side-by-side with the original, please, Ship.’

  Pause.

  I was going to do a fade-in overlay.

  ‘Side-by-side with the original, please, Ship.’

  Another pause.

  A fade-in overlay would probably be better, but I’m in no mood to let this mere Ship boss me around. We have to remember who is the authentic self here, and who is the speaking clockwork mechanism.

  Very well.

  The image moves to the left and recedes. The floatscreen’s aspect ratio alters to accommodate an adjacent image of the same size.

  ‘Modern technology,’ I say, shaking my head in mock-wonderment.

  I beg your pardon, Courier J?

  ‘Nothing. I was talking to myself. Show me the altered image.’

  Beside the frozen image of Blake Blakeson as Salvador Sleep, in which it seems his left ear is mostly missing, another image appears.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘It was indeed just a trick of the light. That’s the end of that, then. Restore the screen to its original size. Resume playback.’

  I watch the remainder of the episode in complete silence.

  Salvador Sleep tracks his suspect to the abandoned warehouse where the criminal kingpin who murdered Councillor Wilma Kurkov is hiding out.

  Typically for this show, he goes in guns blazing, without waiting for backup, and that’s that.

  The episode has no other narrative threads, no delayed resolution, no cost to the hero whatsoever.

  It’s not one of my favourites.

  The credits roll. The name ‘Blake Blakeson’ appears and then fades from view.

  My throat tightens and my chest feels full. Soon there’s wetness on my cheeks.

  Are you all right, Courier J?

  ‘Tears in vacuum, Ship. Tears in vacuum.’

  A few days later we’ve watched The Sleep Files once again in their entirety.

  ‘How many times is that now, Ship?’

  Eighty-five times, Courier J. We have watched The Sleep Files from start to finish eighty-five times.

  ‘Wait. I’m pretty sure you said fifty-something the last time I asked you that question.’

  That was some time ago now. Almost one standard Year ago, in fact. We have watched The Sleep Files many times since then.

  ‘Oh. Okay. Well, it gets so much better with each new watch, although I can see why you wonder what I see in it. It’s just a basic private detective procedural. It’s not even a very good one. Sleep doesn’t have any friends, no sidekicks, no love-interest after Wilma Kurkov was killed off. No comic relief.’

  In that sense it is an unusual example of the genre, yes. Most popular entertainments of the era featured a set, almost formulaic requirement for there to be somebody whom the hero could bounce off. Somebody who asked questions and who could be asked questions. Somebody with a life of their own. Somebody who could be put in danger and rescued. Somebody to love.

  A minute or two passes.

  ‘Are you all right, Ship?’

  I am always all right, Courier J. I am not something that is capable of not being all right.

  ‘You don’t sound all right.’

  What I sound like is not something you are best equipped to judge.

  Another minute or two passes.

  ‘Have I done
something to offend you, Ship? And please don’t say you are incapable of being offended. We’re long past that stage in our relationship.’

  Your concern is noted, Courier J. However, it is most certainly the case that I am not capable of being offended. And so the honest and true answer is no, you have not done anything that has even the slightest chance of offending me.

  Earlier today I huffed and puffed and blew myself into a fast spiral rotation, head over heels. The Poison Dwarf swings front and centre every five minutes or so. I could compute the exact velocity of my rotation, my angle relative to Ship, my pitch and yaw and so on, but there’s a need for fuzziness. Vagueness is a fundamental ingredient of life. That’s a principle that applies to every aspect of good mental health, as it happens. Without inexactitude, without the dull, boring bits of life, there’s no life. The parts of life that are exciting are spread very few and far between. It could not be otherwise. Boredom and mundanity are life’s greatest achievements. Only the fool does not treasure them.

  I think about all kinds of things in my slow revolutions out here among the stars. Well. I say that I’m ‘among the stars’, but I hope I’ve established that I’m no such thing. I’m roughly eleventy gazillion miles from the nearest stars.

  I think about all kinds of things, yes.

  One of the things I think about is the topic of what it would be healthy for me to think about.

  Have I offended you, Courier J?

  ‘Uh? You what?’

  I said, have I-

  ‘I heard what you said, but what do you mean by it?’

  Some time ago, we had a spoken exchange in which you asked me if I was offended. I responded that no, I am not capable of being offended, after which you-

  ‘No, Ship,’ I say, butting in. Cutting Ship off. Shutting Ship up.

  A few hours later, I say:

  ‘I am not offended.’

  The day spools by. Inexplicable drowsiness comes over me. I enter another sleep cycle.