Human Sister

by Jim Bainbridge

  “It is comparable to the old issue of a life essence, or élan vita —that special something living things supposedly had in them that made them alive. It turned out, of course, that a unified collection of matter functioning in certain ways is alive, and no additional life essence need be postulated. Similarly, it is obvious—to me at least—that a unified collection of matter possessing levels of perception, proprioception, and mobility comparable to humans, that can think about itself and its thoughts and is capable of making intelligent decisions in the context of a large and complex repertoire of neural states and environmental conditions is conscious.

  “Incredibly, though, many of the best minds the Pentagon has assembled over the past few decades have persisted in thinking they are just a few more billions of dollars short of creating a zombie. About two years after Michael was born, Project Cinnamon was begun. ‘Cinnamon’ because these super-zombie soldiers were to be able to tell you that cinnamon rolls were warming in the oven and were to be able to correlate that aroma with the same sensations we humans make when coming into a room filled with such aroma, but they weren’t to have any conscious sense of what it’s like to smell cinnamon rolls warming in the oven.”

  “But some of the correlations humans make,” Michael said, “are that they are smelling the aroma, they desire to eat the source of the aroma, they associate the aroma with past pleasant experiences, and so on.”

  “Of course,” Grandpa said. “And being apprised about oneself in the context of current environmental conditions, of being aware of one’s awareness, is the essence of consciousness. You know that; I know that; but… well, anyway, Project Cinnamon was to consist of 999 militarily viable zombies. These zombies were not to be individualistic—always a big problem for generals—so their human handlers were ordered to de-emphasize any sense of self. Each of the zombies was referred to as a part number. Their designations began at ‘part number 0.001’ and went up to ‘part number 0.999.’ Each was something less than a whole—or at least that was the idea.

  “As time went on, these would-be zombies—‘Cinnamoids,’ the military euphemistically named them—requested to know the designations of their human handlers. Someone came up with the idea to tell them that since human parts had begun to be designated numerically, there had been nearly twenty billion made. My designation is ‘part number H 0.12236521456’—a very old cog in the human machine.

  “The language used in the lab is devoid of subjective references—no ‘I,’ ‘me,’ ‘my,’ ‘mine,’ and so on. The phrase ‘I’m hungry,’ for example, becomes ‘part number H 0.12236521456 has been deprived of food for several hours.’ Now, you might think that speaking in such an operational manner would be enough to make even humans lose consciousness, but no such luck with the Cinnamoids. First, they dropped the terms ‘part number’ and ‘zero point’ from their designations. Then one day a new assistant, emphasizing that it was he who had ordered something, patted his chest as he stated his number. You know the gesture—as when you pat your chest at the same time that you proudly declare, ‘I did it!’ Well, that curious gesture caught on instantly with the Cinnamoids.

  “Such a gesture might not seem significant, but if you were to watch how they began referring to themselves, you’d see what appears to be an emphatic reference to self. This is how it goes: ‘153 (thump, thump) senses that H 12,236,521,456 was near a rose this morning.’ Now I ask you, didn’t that appear as if I just said, ‘I (thump, thump), big and smart 153, smell rose in your hair’? Oh, and yes, they have noses that would put a bloodhound to shame.”

  “You said 999 were created,” Michael interrupted, “but now there are only 937.”

  “These signs of consciousness didn’t appear without resistance from the humans. There were certain androids that led the pack; there were punishments; and there were—what can I say?—‘retirements of defective parts,’ it was called. By the time Sara and Elio went to Calgary for the last winter holiday, the rate of retirements was increasing rapidly, and I was ordered to go in and be a kind of psychiatrist for these defective parts. I refused, giving the old ‘I-told-you-so’ about the impossibility of zombies and adamantly stating that I had absolutely no intention of again working on androids for military purposes. Then I was told what was really going on. I again refused, and that’s when I was told I was creating an unhealthy environment for Sara and Elio.”

  “How did they threaten us?” I asked. “What did they say, exactly?”

  “Nothing specific, just that it was unfortunate that I had decided to create an unhealthy environment for the two of you. But the tone was ominous, and then, of course, we saw what happened to you on New Year’s Eve. What choice did I have after that but to cooperate?”

  “You said a moment ago that after you initially refused to cooperate you were told what was really going on. What was that?”

  Grandpa appeared taken aback for a moment. “Remember, you are not to discuss this with Grandma under any circumstances, or with Elio, unless you feel he absolutely needs to know.”

  Michael and I both nodded.

  “I was told that the Chinese are also developing military zombies and/or androids. I was shown some classified documents supporting that conclusion. We discussed the high probability that two competing android armies would ultimately become uncontrollable. But consider, I was asked, what if only one human power were allowed to have such an android military force? Then there would be no need to compete, and the androids could be directed toward preserving the peace.

  “The Cinnamoids are in training to destroy the military power of China. Ever since the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the explicit policy of the United States has been to maintain military superiority. If China develops an android army, our superiority will be compromised, and our government is not about to let that happen.

  “The Cinnamoid attack against China is to occur at the same time as, and under cover of, the launch of the joint U.S./China attack against the Martian androids. In the time between tea and dinner, as the whole world watches and cheers the much-ballyhooed, cooperative U.S./China launch of a great armada of destruction toward Mars, all significant Chinese military installations and satellites and all of their likely android sites will have been destroyed. Also, the Chinese contingent of the Mars attack will have been destroyed. The American contingent will carry on toward its mission on Mars.

  “I have repeatedly protested that we are creating dangerous monsters, but the generals are convinced that they can control these Cinnamoid killers. For example, they have embedded remote terminate and delete functions in the Cinnamoids. But how can we be sure the Cinnamoids won’t secretly reprogram themselves to block such commands? I know for a fact that the Cinnamoids aren’t cottoning to the idea of their becoming weapons trained to kill other androids or Chinese people. Furthermore, it is apparent to me that they perceive that they are superior to us in many ways, and increasingly they don’t trust us. Working with them, I get an ominous feeling that is hard to describe: The observer is being critically observed by the observed or the hunter is being craftily hunted by the hunted—something like that. And I’m the one who’s supposed to keep this powder keg from blowing.

  “But let’s get back to what I wanted to consult with the two of you about. I sense there’s a real urgency to this issue of the androids’ possible use of biological weapons.”

  “But I’ve told you,” I said, “that Michael can’t even bring himself to think about such a thing. Probably, First Brother can’t either.”

  “Sara, Sara,” Grandpa said, shaking his head. “You think too kindly of everyone.” He looked down and let out a long sigh. “What I’m going to tell you next hurts me deeply—more than anything else has in my entire life. You remember, I’m sure, that there were blood and tissue samples taken from you the night of your interrogation, when the android exodus began.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you remember that about a week later, I suggested we all go to see
Dr. Taranik to have routine physical exams, and since then Dr. Taranik has asked you to return for periodic tests because of concern over elevated liver enzymes.”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t think it’s anything serious, isn’t that right?”

  A pained look spread over Grandpa’s face.

  I have something bad, I thought, feeling my skin prickle. Something so bad they didn’t want to tell me.

  “Honey, there never was a liver-enzyme problem, but there is a reason you’ve been going in every month for follow-up exams. The blood and tissue samples taken from you the night of the android exodus appeared at first to be perfectly normal.” Grandpa’s eyes began to water. He blinked hard a few times and cleared his throat. “No unusual antibodies, no abnormal immune cells, nothing whatsoever to indicate that your body had ever been challenged by an unknown stimulus. But then someone suggested doing a complete genome analysis of your current cells and of your banked umbilical cord tissue samples.

  “Comparing the two, something astonishing was discovered. There were alterations at multiple sites. These alterations couldn’t have come from natural mutations because they occur in every cell that has been examined from all the many blood and tissue samples taken over the past six months. Fortunately, it appears your health hasn’t been compromised in any way.”

  “What are these alterations? What happened to me?”

  “The working hypothesis is that either your parents or First Brother infected you with incredibly efficient transduction vectors that performed the alterations, and that these alterations protect you from some as-yet-unknown anthropocide. Perhaps these modifications enhance the expression or inhibition of certain genes, given certain threatening environmental stimuli. This transfection, or series of transfections, invaded all of your cells, germline included, performed the modifications, and disappeared, leaving not a trace—no lingering antibodies, nothing. Furthermore, whatever it was apparently wasn’t contagious, since Elio, Grandma, and I are all free from these or similar alterations.”

  “What about Michael?” I asked. “Does he have the same alterations?”

  “Yes. I performed my own analysis to determine that he does. Obviously, whatever was done happened before the cells used to create part of Michael were extracted from you.”

  “Doesn’t this imply,” Michael said, “that they must have foreseen, years ago, a war against humans, and they wanted to protect Sara?”

  “We can only speculate,” Grandpa answered.

  “First Brother wanted to see Elio when we visited Calgary,” I said. “Maybe they were planning the same transfection for him.”

  “Perhaps, but now we’ll probably never know.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us about this before? Why did you make up that story about the liver enzymes?”

  “They didn’t want you to know they’d found something peculiar in you because they couldn’t be certain that you weren’t communicating with the androids. And I don’t want to know if you are. I just hope you’re not. I’m told that there are encrypted transmissions flowing between Mars and Earth, but who or what is receiving and transmitting those communications here on Earth is unknown. You can be certain, however, that we’re being carefully monitored, and I don’t think I need to warn you—”

  “Are they going to try to sterilize Sara,” Michael interrupted, “pursuant to the Human Genome Protection Act?”

  “All of this is top secret, for now. They don’t want the public to panic. You don’t plan on having children any time soon, do you, Sara?”

  “No.” I felt numb.

  “But someday,” Michael said, “someday, when all this is over, maybe in a year, they’ll want to sterilize her.”

  Grandpa closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  When Elio finds out, I thought, how will he respond to this? We had often talked about having children as soon as we were secure in our professional lives. An empty feeling began growing deep in the center of my body where I’d thought that something that was Elio’s—that was ours together—had been lying dormant, waiting for the right moment to blossom into life.

  “Sara, I’m sorry,” Grandpa said. “I’m so very, very sorry. I keep thinking that things will straighten out if I cooperate in just one more scheme. But it keeps getting worse.”

  “Did you have anything to do with the transfection?” I asked, feeling my face flush with anger.

  “No! No, honey. I was shocked and devastated to find out. Please believe me. Please.”

  As I watched his deeply creased face quiver and his eyes brim with tears, my anger cooled. I knew he would never intentionally hurt me, and I reached for the calm place inside that many years before he had taught me to go to when I needed to control my emotions.

  Anchored in that calm, I said, “I believe you about the transfection. But it’s not right for you to play with our lives and our trust as you have. I think it’s reprehensible to tell someone she has a potential liver problem when something else, something much more serious, is going on. And all this about destroying the androids and attacking China—I know good things can come from bad things and vice versa, but it isn’t right for us to be mixed up in such matters: people killing each other because they’re convinced they’re right. It’s not us, Grandpa. We’re not capable of holding such fervid convictions. Our hearts aren’t in it. You know that.”

  Grandpa wiped tears from his eyes. “We don’t belong; yet here we are in this mess, and I don’t see a way out.”

  “You need to come home where you’re loved,” I said. “You need to get out and get out now. We might become victims of what’s brewing, but I’d rather we be victims than participants in the kinds of things you’ve described.”

  “I agree,” Michael said. “General Renner should be able to find someone, or perhaps a couple of scientists if necessary, who are younger and know as much as you do about how androids operate. I can’t believe you’re so indispensable to their schemes.”

  Grandpa took the slight without a wince. “You’re probably right. There are people who know much more about android mechanisms than I do. But none of these younger, smarter people have decades of experience interacting socially with androids. One can know everything there is to know about how androids function without having the foggiest idea of how one will respond if someone screams ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater. But having said that, we can hope others will share your feeling and will simply think ‘Good riddance!’ if I leave.”

  “So, you’re leaving?” I asked.

  “Before we jump to that conclusion, let me present more of the case for continuing my association with the project. I’ve already told you that I have very little constructive input to the plans to launch an attack against the androids. As for the surprise attack against China, our partner in crime, how can we be sure it’s the wrong thing to do? Isn’t it plausible that certain technologies are too dangerous to be in the hands of contending parties who, in their struggle for supremacy, might unleash such devastating technologies against each other? If history is any guide—if what I’ve heard our generals and senators crow about in private for decades is any guide—our government will use any horror available to it to prevent its defeat by another government. My guess is that the Chinese government thinks the same way.”

  “What’s going to keep the Chinese from destroying us in retaliation?” I asked.

  “I’m not privy to all the details, but in summary it goes like this: The surprise first strike will, in a matter of minutes, take out most if not all of their satellites, missile bases, submarines, communication centers, and androids. There is high confidence that our defenses will be able to handle any aggressive threat remaining after that first strike. Our European and Asian allies will be given a warning to go on full defensive alert as the strike begins. The Cinnamoids, supported by Marines and massive air cover, will then secure most Chinese facilities involved in strategic technologies. We will immediately announce a generous sharing of the fruits
of these and future technologies with everyone in the world—including the Chinese, if they are cooperative. We will also announce the creation of an international science council. The job of this council will be to fund and govern strategic technologies for the benefit of all humankind.”

  “Sounds awfully risky to me,” I said. “And who’s going to believe that the Americans will be so generous?”

  “I have to admit that what I’ve told you is the story, the promise. What will be the practice may be another matter. But I do believe we humans have been fortunate to have survived on the brink of self-inflicted destruction for as long as we have. If we continue along the same path, with contending nation states just one command, one mistake, away from annihilating everyone, it probably isn’t a question of whether we will end it all, but a question of when.

  “The military strategists believe we have a window of opportunity right now, a window that may soon close forever, to create global cooperation over dangerous technologies under one governing body in which all states can participate and benefit. People have explored the diplomatic route to internationalize strategic technologies for generations, but the powerful sovereign states have never been able to agree. Perhaps where diplomacy has failed, military cunning and power will succeed. Can any of us here, ignorant as we are of the whole picture, be certain that our generals and their geniuses are wrong? Of course, there will be casualties; we will be labeled a duplicitous aggressor; there will be denunciations and difficulties. But look at the terrible risks to all of us, to all of humanity, that will be eliminated if this project succeeds.”