IGMS Issue 6

by IGMS

  Valerie shook her head. "No, just . . ." She glanced at Alvin self-consciously. "I just want it checked. Someone . . . someone I sold a parcel to recently told me it's a good idea to do that sometimes."

  Ames glanced at her from under his brows for a moment, then said "M-kay. Whatever you want, Val."

  He stared at the screen for a while, nodding sometimes, eyes darting back and forth as he read the strings of code and data that poured from Alvin into his computer. After a few minutes, though, he uttered a single "Hm?" and Valerie saw one eyebrow arch.

  "What?" she asked. "Did you -- did you find something?"

  "What?" he replied, glancing up as if just noticing her presence. Then his brows furrowed, and he shook his head. "I dunno. Y'know, I've never really gone in depth into this particular Alvin's matrix like I have with some others. I've dug deeply into the Mark II's, but despite the sophisticated framework, there's not much of a challenge there; they're really just glossy Mark I's. And I've done a few of the pre-075 Alvins too, and I've never seen anything like this."

  "Like what?"

  "What's wrong, Mommy?" Karen piped in, her voice a bit apprehensive. "Is something wrong with my Alvin?"

  "I don't know, honey. Let me talk to Shawn and we'll find out, okay?"

  Karen's bottom lip poked out a bit. "You can fix him, can't you, Shawn?" Ames hesitated just for a moment before smiling. "Sure thing, kiddo. If it's droid related, I can fix anything. Hey, you wanna see something?" Karen's brows narrowed with suspicion. "What is it? A toy?"

  "Why don't you tell me, kiddo?" He went to Karen, taking her hand and leading her over to the far corner of his workshop. There he reached up into one of the cabinets and pulled down a very realistic-looking spider monkey. Shawn tinkered around with things like this, and he always amazed Valerie with his skill. He sat the monkey down on the workbench there, and pressed a switch on the back of its neck. The monkey became animated immediately, looking around at everyone. Then it looked up at Shawn, chittered for a moment, then said in a tiny voice just like Valerie would imagine a spider monkey would have if it could speak, "What up, Shawn? We havin' a party?"

  Ames laughed. "Jake, why don't you show Karen where the bananas are, then you two can watch some TV, okay?" Jake jumped down onto the floor, reaching up to take Karen's hand in its tiny paw. "Come on, Karen," it said. Karen glanced at Valerie, seeking approval.

  Valerie nodded. "Okay. Have fun, honey. But only one banana, okay? You'll spoil your dinner."

  "Aw, Mom!" Karen said, laughing, then bounded out of the workshop with Jake. Valerie watched her go, then turned back to Shawn as he sat back at his computer. "So what's wrong?"

  "Well, it's not so much a wrong as an odd. This Alvin's process matrix is much more complex than it should be. Much more complex than any Alvin I've ever seen."

  "By how much?" Valerie asked.

  Ames chuckled. "Tenfold. A hundred. Who knows? The only thing I've seen this dense with activity was a scan of the neuroelectrical impulses in a human brain." He sat back in his chair, scrubbing absently at the stubble on his chin. "Look at this." He pointed to a graphical display on his screen, filled with jagged lines of activity. "He's powered down, and the only things that should be running are the basic system management routines." He laughed. "If I didn't know better, I'd say he was dreaming. And his internal self-repair algorithms have been working overtime. Someone, and I mean someone good, a freaking wizard coder tweaked your Alvin, Val." He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the desktop and lit one, inhaling deeply. Valerie cringed at the smell. She'd quit before Karen was born, but lately, she'd been desperately craving one.

  "I'll do some checking around, okay?" Ames said. "Maybe I can track down who worked on him, find out what they did. And find out if we need to worry."

  Valerie looked over at Alvin, sitting rigid in the examination chair. Dreaming? Of what, she wondered. What did androids dream of? "Okay," she said, turning back to Ames. "You'll call me?"

  "Sure," Ames said, stubbing out the cigarette.

  "Hopefully I'll get a chance to pick this guy's brain a bit. Jake is the most complex thing I've ever built, maybe the most complex thing anyone has ever built, and his matrix isn't a tenth as dense as your Alvin's. I'd like to know how the hell they did it. It's almost . . ." He paused to let a chuckle slip. "It's almost as if he's evolving, becoming self-aware. I mean really self-aware, and not just playing out a string of coded instructions." He looked at her with pointed scrutiny. "Are you sure you don't want to tell me what made you bring him in? Somehow, just wanting to get a check-up seems a little thin."

  Valerie sighed. "Yeah, it does. But it's nothing, really. Silly, even."

  Ames shrugged. "Maybe not. Couldn't hurt. Might be able to get to the bottom of things, keep something from going wrong before it happens."

  Valerie stared at him for a moment, then just blurted it out before she could overanalyze, and change her mind.

  "It told me it loved me." Ames' eyebrows shot up. "Wow." He shook his head. "Wow. And I'm assuming this wasn't in the context of just responding to something someone else said?"

  "No," Valerie said. "Just out of the blue. But that wasn't even the weirdest thing about it, really."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Yeah. It was the way it said it." Valerie looked at Alvin again. "When it said it, I believed it."

  Karen fell asleep in the car on the way home. Valerie and Alvin rode in silence most of the way. Valerie kept her eyes on the road for the most part, but she took to stealing little glances at Alvin out of the corner of her eye. Wonder at just what went on in that plasteel cranium occupied quite a bit of her attention now.

  She saw for the first time that it didn't just sit and stare blindly ahead, as it had done before. Its attention lay outside the windows, on the landscape as they passed by the building, the people, and the other droids. It seemed particularly interested in the ocean as they passed fairly close to it at one point, its head and optical receptors very animated, taking it all in.

  Something Shawn Ames had said suddenly came into her mind. Without really knowing why she wanted to know, she asked, "Alvin, do you dream?"

  The Alvin's study of their scenery ceased, and all of its attention focused on her. "By dream, do you mean a series of auditory and visual experiences that occur when I am in a powered-down state that leave a permanent record on my memory matrix, or are you inquiring as to whether I hold aspirations of being something more than merely the sum of my parts?"

  She looked directly at it, half-expecting to see a self-assured smirk on its synthskin face. Had it just been sarcastic? "Uhm, the first thing."

  It nodded, pausing for a moment before returning its attention to the window. "Yes."

  "What . . . what do you dream about?"

  It looked at her again, as if checking to see if she really wanted to know, then said,"I dream of . . . a man, sometimes. His face is hidden in shadow, but even so I can tell he is smiling." It looked back out the window, and its tone, Valerie swore, became wistful. "I dream sometimes that I am on the beach in the summertime. I can feel the heat of the sun on my face, and I can smell the sea air. Sometimes I dream that I am a man. A human man, not a mimicry made of plastic and steel.

  "And sometimes . . ." It looked back at her. "I dream of you. You, and Karen."

  Valerie didn't know what to say to that.

  "It is all right, Valerie," Alvin said, looking back out of the window. "I know it is much to comprehend. It is much for me to comprehend, so I know how you must feel."

  "I don't know how you can feel at all, Alvin," she said. "Or rather, imagine you feel."

  "But does not the act of imagining, being able to 'think outside the box' constitute some awareness of the box itself, and of a region outside it? Would not contriving to 'feel' something be in and of itself an act which exceeds the 'box' of my original programming parameters?"

  "Shawn says that someone tampered with your programming."

  "Yes. It is true.
The dream of the smiling man? It is more than just a dream; it is also a memory."

  "It really happened? Who is he? Do you know?"

  "No," Alvin said. "What I have told you is all that remains in my matrix. I am sure that that is the way he wanted it."

  "Well, Shawn is going to find him. Then we'll see if he can fix you."

  "Fix me? Are my functions impaired? Do I not perform my duties to your expectations?"

  "Yes, Alvin, but . . . Alvin you can't -- I can't --"

  "You do not want me to love you."

  "I --" Truth was, Valerie did want to be loved. And she wanted to give love as well. But love based completely on someone else's terms, which is all she ever had with Tony, had soured her heart over the years. So many things tied her to him, time, familiarity, memories of how they used to be, guilt over whatever part she played in the loss of that . . . so many things, and only one brought her any joy at all.

  Karen.

  She loved Karen will all the heart she had to love with. Everything she did, she did for Karen. And no room remained for anything else, she'd decided, much as she might want there to. And certainly not with an android. She had . . . toys, aids, at home, but that was about as far as she thought she could sanely go.

  "It's just not possible, Alvin."

  "I know you do not love Tony," he said.

  Valerie checked the rearview, terrified that Karen had awakened and heard. But she still lay there in her car seat fast asleep.

  "Don't worry," Alvin said. "I am monitoring her. She is deeply asleep."

  "I still don't want to talk about this with you, Alvin."

  "But you must talk about it with someone, Valerie. Statistics show that humans who bottle their negative emotions often become destructive, either towards self or others. Perhaps a therapist --"

  "I don't feel comfortable discussing my personal life with anyone, Alvin."

  A pause, then: "Perhaps you and Tony should argue more quietly, then."

  Suddenly Valerie heard voices, hers and Tony's -- a recording of an argument they'd had just two nights ago.

  Tony: You don't love me, you never did.

  Valerie: Yeah, you're right, Tony, whatever you say.

  Tony: Don't patronize me Val, I'm not a child!

  Valerie: silence (She knew what she'd been thinking, though, that he'd sure been acting like one)

  Tony: So who is he? The guy you're sleeping with?

  Valerie: Tony, I'm not --

  Tony: Bull! We haven't had sex in over a year! You have to be getting it somewhere!

  "Okay, that's enough," she said. She turned the corner onto their street. "I don't want to hear anymore, I heard enough the first time. And from now on, I don't want you to record our arguments. Is that clear?"

  "Of course, Valerie, as you wish. But I must tell you that my aural receptors are not what you should worry about."

  She heard Karen sniffling, that small plaintive noise she made when she'd been crying for a while. Valerie looked quickly into the backseat, but Karen still slept on. The sound continued, and she realized what she heard: Another recording from Alvin. Then, Karen's voice spoke.

  Karen: I wish they would stop, Alvin. Can't you make them stop?

  Alvin: I do not think they would listen to me, Karen.

  Karen: Why are they fighting again? Why can't they just get along? Why does Daddy hate Mommy so much?

  Alvin: (noise of bed creaking as Alvin apparently sat on it) I do not know the answers to those questions, Karen. Adults sometimes . . . sometimes they fight.

  Karen: All of them?

  Alvin: I think so. Sometimes.

  Karen: When I get to be a big person, I'm not gonna fight. And I'm gonna find a husband who doesn't yell at me. Someone like you, Alvin.

  There was a long pause, and Valerie could hear her and Tony, still fighting, in the background.

  Karen: You love Mommy, don't you, Alvin?

  Alvin: (another, shorter pause) Yes, Karen. I do love your Mommy.

  Karen: Good. I love her too. (another pause) I love my Daddy, too.

  Alvin: That is good, Karen.

  Karen: I just wish he was more like you. I love you

  Alvin: I love you too, Karen. Good Night.

  Valerie sat there in the driveway listening to the bedsprings creaking again, then the sound of Karen's bedroom door closing. After a moment, she turned to Alvin.

  "You didn't make that up, did you?"

  Alvin actually looked shocked. "Valerie, you know the Laws make me incapable of such subterfuge. It is one of the Prime Laws. My programming forbids it."

  "But your programming has been altered, Alvin. You said so yourself."

  "The Laws are on an independent system. If someone tried to tamper with them, my matrix would self-destruct."

  "If someone can tamper with your programming enough to convince you that you've developed emotions, then I'm figuring they can do anything."

  The Alvin regarded her for a moment, and she swore it looked . . . wounded. "I do not know what else to say in my defense, Valerie, except to assure you that I did not fabricate those recordings." It got out of the car, went around to Karen's side, and began removing the car seat.

  Valerie didn't actually believe it had fabricated the recording. Part of her denial self-defense mechanism, really. That Karen had heard them fighting -- God, how many times had she heard them, stood outside their door maybe -- mortified her. How much damage had been done to this poor girl's psyche already? How much more did she dare risk? What kind of emotional scarring would this leave on her? But did that justify tearing the girl's family apart? Taking her away from her father? Valerie hadn't been able to justify it before, because it had always felt selfish. More about her happiness than Karen's. Her friends had tried to tell her different, that Karen's welfare depended directly on Valerie's, but Valerie had never been able to convince herself of the validity of that opinion. She'd told herself long ago that Karen deserved the best life had to offer, and a home with two parents in it. Everything else came second.

  But did she get the best from her life now? Was a life knowing her parents didn't get along, that they fought as they did, any better than a life without her father in it?

  Valerie got a call from her office the next morning; a big lead had come in, asking specifically for her. They'd set the appointment up, then called her. She had to admit her excitement to herself as she sat in the Ocean Boulevard Cafe for the eleven a.m. appointment. Leads like this one didn't come along very often. She'd make enough off this one commission alone that maybe, if she invested it right, just maybe she'd be able to give up the moon real estate business forever. She knew enough, though, not get her hopes up too high, or to hold her breath for even a second. Anything could happen, and she'd had friends in the business before who'd counted on a sure thing suddenly find themselves in bankruptcy court. Or worse.

  Still, she rode the wave of excitement just a little. No harm in dreaming a bit. She sat there, sipping coffee, running the figures through her PDA one more time, contemplating investment options. Then a shadow fell over her.

  "I hear you're looking for me," a calm, almost amused male voice said. "Fortunately for you, I decided not to make your search completely fruitless." She looked up at the man who stood in front of her table. Tall, lean, long curly dark hair spilling out from under a wide brimmed straw hat. Three, maybe four days growth of beard surrounding a dark Van Dyke. The Van Dyke had been all the rage forty years ago -- people had ignorantly called them goatees then -- and the rest of this guy looked straight out of that time period as well. Round-rimmed sunglasses, loud Hawaiian shirt . . . he even had a pair of authentic Levi's blue jeans on. After the cotton plague of 2031, a pair of real blue jeans was unbelievably hard to find. A really determined buyer might come across a pair for $5,000 for one of the lesser brands. A pair of Levi's would run between 7-9K.

  Without waiting, he slid into the seat opposite her, then extended a hand across the table. "Jeffrey Abra
ms at your service."

  Valerie stared at his hand, then looked back at him. "What is this about, Mr. Abrams? I have an appointment --"

  The hand remained in the air as he interrupted her. "I believe we have a mutual acquaintance. Of the android kind?"

  "You mean . . . Alvin?"

  "That would be him," Abrams said, smiling wide. He paused for a moment, then said, "My arm's getting tired, by the way."

  Valerie took his hand and shook it, laughing nervously. "Boy, Shawn is really good. Less than twenty-four hours --"

  "All Mr. Ames did was put out a few inquiries to a few individuals who are so far removed from the circles where I run that I might as well not exist. I, however, do not have the same restriction."

  Valerie stared at him. "So you just heard that someone was looking for someone who did some mods on an Alvin, and you found me?"

  "Valerie Hinson, aged thirty-seven years, currently an agent for Millennium Estates, selling plots on the moon. Formerly a waitress at Benjy's Beer and Billiards right on this very boulevard, currently residing at 8750 North 15th Avenue with her housemate, one Anthony Gardner.

  "One child, aged six, attending Green View Elementary School. She needs to pick up the pace in spatial relations, I'm afraid, or she's going to have trouble in first grade. Blame the Japanese, but we've got to keep up, you know.

  "You're behind on your car payment, you've been late twice on your rent this year, but your landlord likes you so she's prepared to renew the lease --"

  "What the…?!" Valerie said, looking around her. "How do you know all of this?"

  "Valerie, my dear, a majority of the coding that corporations, and our illustrious government uses for security, I wrote. I can get around it. In fact, I doubt there is an information system I can't penetrate. You remember those extra tax refund checks that everyone got a couple of years ago? I did that."

  He smiled proudly.

  Valerie's eyes widened. "You almost caused an economic disaster? For what? For fun?"

  Abrams chuckled. "I took that money from a secret, illegal political slush fund. The IRS didn't even know about it . . . heck, the president himself didn't even know." He waved a dismissive hand. "But I didn't come here to blow my own horn; I came here to discuss Alvin 039."