The BioTeks and SimTeks all wore the traditional white coats, but no one offered coats—or chairs—to Hamlet or Horatio. The two stood behind a bank of oversized scrollscreens unfurled like square-rigged sails.
Beneath them were two identical tanks of clear liquid. A solid gray mass, jacked into the room wiring, floated in each tank. Horatio, seeing free-floating neuroputty for the first time, was slightly nauseated. Doctor Mulvaney passed within two feet of them, her lab coat flapping briskly as she headed for the tanks.
Horatio said, “Excuse me.” No one noticed. “Excuse me?”
Hamlet said in a thundering stage voice, “Since, clearly, none of you are busy—”
Everyone stopped. Every head turned. It got a laugh.
He continued, stepping forward, “Perhaps you could answer a few questions.”
The mid-rank Teks frowned, and a FirstTek coughed disapprovingly. An ambitious SecTek, standing near him, immediately looked annoyed at Hamlet.
But an older man who had laughed stepped forward, “You’re Hamlet, aren’t you? I’m Doctor Chandra. Doctor Venkatesh Chandra.” He did not offer to shake hands, and he glanced over Hamlet’s shoulder at Goode. “As you guessed, and hinted delightfully, we’re busy.”
Hamlet folded his arms, looking at ease rather than hostile. “I gather you’re making a new android.”
Goode looked stunned. Hamlet said, “BioTeks, SimTeks, and a HeadTek together—what else could you be doing?”
Chandra recovered. “An excellent… guess. Actually, we’re running him, not making him.”
Hamlet said, “I know nothing about labs—that’s why we came—but I know language. You mean that he is made, but not complete, or that he is made, but not by you.”
Chandra said, “Succinct and correct,” He had a pleasant accent, a little like Harvard and a little like public simcasters. “He assembles while running.” He indicated the larger neuroputty cabinets connected to the small tanks.
A SimTek spoke into his ring. “Simulator subs linked.”
Another said immediately, “Simulator exec linked.”
And another, “Character compiler subs linked.”
“Character compiler real time execution on.”
Hamlet noticed, as a Tek turned his head, a flash from inside his ear. He saw, clearly, the pearl-shaped piece nestled in the earhole, a clear plastic handle sticking up from it.
Goode said, “Today we’re only running the character and the audio. It will all be quite real for him, but for us—”
“It’s like meditation,” Hamlet said suddenly. “An out-of-body experience.”
Doctor Mulvaney said, “Yes, exactly.”
Hamlet turned to her. “Thank you for mentioning us to Goode. He brought us here.” He felt as excited as at an actual birth. “And later, you’ll set his looks, and then—”
“—The body itself, yes. I wish I could tell you what happens then, but I’ve never seen it.” Chandra sounded wistful. He said into his ring, “Set value: Courtier One. Temporary name: Joseph.” Pause. “Initiate planning sequence.”
Goode asked, “Would you like to know what’s going on?”
Hamlet was staring from screen to screen, straining to read unexplained code sequences. “How can I, unless I could hear a summary of what the Teks hear?”
Goode blinked. “Well done, Hamlet. They do have separate audio feeds.” He whispered into his Access ring.
Suddenly, at Hamlet’s shoulder, Doctor Capek said, “So, young man. You wish to know how our simulas are built?” Horatio stared at him. As the voice had suggested, Capek was several years older than when they had last seen him. His hair was mainly gray rather than streaked with it, and the wrinkles showed around his eyes even when he wasn’t smiling. His kindness had been dulled by tiredness, his willingness to teach by the repetition.
Claire Mulvaney looked once, quickly, then turned away. Goode smiled indifferently at her.
Hamlet said steadily, “I would very much like that.”
Capek stared at Hamlet. “You remind me of someone… no matter.” He waved an arm. “A simula, at any given moment, is not itself.” He saw that Hamlet was confused, and looked pleased. “It is a sample of a larger self—as, I suppose, we all are. But what we do and what we are comes from the larger self, from the lifetime, not from the sample we call ‘now.’ You are here today to watch the derivation of the larger self.”
Hamlet said in a rush, “What if the larger self already comes from a sample—from, for instance, a drama?”
Capek moved as if to pat his head. “A clever thought, but even dramatic characters would need extension from psychostatistics or from scans of real humans. In the case of an exceptional dramatist, they could be derived from the entire body of his—”
He vanished. Goode looked up from his ring and said, “Was he any help, Hamlet?”
Hamlet said, “He always was.” He refused to look grief-stricken, and Horatio was suddenly proud of him.
Chandra said, “Ready, Claire?”
Doctor Mulvaney said calmly, “Ready, Venkatesh.”
“Run.”
A few Teks touched their ears. Nothing else happened. Horatio said, “Did something go wrong?”
Goode said, “It takes time for the pre-assembly. Can’t you hear—of course not. My apologies.” He swept two of the receiver-pearls off a nearby tray, twisted the tiny handles, and returned. “These are set on general, so you won’t be distracted by the subcommands to the Tek-stations. Bend your head to the left.” Horatio did. “That’s good. Now you, my lord.”
“I still hear nothing.”
“Not on general Access, my lord, but the nervous system is assembling. Then the brain is assigned storage, then the first reactions are installed. From there it takes longer.”
“Takes who longer?”
Chandra said, “Not a ‘who.’ A system.” Chandra looked uncomfortably at Goode and went on, “We assign assembly to an over-program, a simula constructor. But since the character we’re assembling isn’t as complicated as you two, we don’t turn it over to—we don’t use the same system we used for you. Not at this stage, anyway.”
“I see. And who begins these constructors? A personality on Access, perhaps?”
Chandra said easily, “Oh, the exec system did start it for us, of course. It used old files. You’d better listen now; you don’t want to miss anything.”
Horatio heard the rush that comes of holding a shell to your ear. He wondered what Hamlet heard.
Hamlet, hearing the same thing, wondered what Horatio heard. He also wondered if Chandra had set their devices for a low security level. He noticed that the HighTeks seemed to be listening.to something, but the LowTeks were straining to hear anything.
Hamlet was intent and very happy. In the brief, tense silence, he whispered to Horatio, “Be ready.”
Horatio said, “You think this will be your wonderful secret, don’t you?”
Hamlet nodded. “See how it’s done? No body, all spirit. We are at the birth of an angel.”
* * * * *
Hamlet and Horatio jumped when suddenly, shockingly—as though on their shoulders—a newborn baby wailed with terrible, meaningless energy, too inexperienced for anger or fear.
Red zeroes and colons appeared on all the screens: 00:000:00:00:00. Blue ones below them appeared; the far right zeroes changed to one, then two, counting off seconds.
After thirty, Mulvaney stepped forward. “Hush, Joey,” she cooed. “Joe. My Joseph. Joey—” The baby stopped crying. She stepped back, impassively observing again.
Her voice echoed, “How’s my Joey? How’s my baby? Joey, Joey, Joey—”
After four repetitions of the woman’s cooing affection, Chandra stepped forward and said lovingly, “How’s my son? How’s Little Joe today? Give your daddy a kiss, Joey.”
As he stepped back, the woman’s voice came on again, faster but no higher. In four reps, Chandra’s voice came in.
The red numbers on the
screens were changing twice as fast as the blue, then three times as fast, then a blur. Chandra turned to Hamlet. “It can talk faster than we can.”
The third red zero from the right changed to a one. The baby was an hour old.
“There’s a pattern to the talk.” Hamlet listened as the chatter became a high-speed drone, male and female discernible as a pulse and then not at all.
“Very good. Five female to one male. We think that’s the proportion he would have heard as an Elizabethan baby.”
“And you see no need to change that.”
“Not yet.” He gestured at the flashing time on the screen.
The baby was a day old. “Later we’ll change the proportions, of course. When he’s old enough.”
“To make him modern. Of course.” Hamlet looked blankly approving as Chandra eyed him curiously. “And his speech?”
“Oh, we made that and his experiences modern to begin with, to assess his development quickly.”
A week passed on-screen, then a second and a third. Three minutes had elapsed on the real time counter.
Periodically Hamlet and Horatio heard cries of hunger, of frustration, of anger. They heard the first laughter. They heard experimental babble.
Horatio said, “How are we hearing those?”
“Digital sampling.” Chandra used his hands like a man folding paper. “It takes what we say and squeezes it into fast time, then takes Joe’s answer and expands it. Otherwise we’d be here forever.”
Horatio looked at the red counter—six months, then the blue—four minutes. “Forever?”
“Well, quite a while.” Chandra put his ring to his mouth again, “Commence two-way sampling.” He said immediately in his fatherly tone, “And how’s my good boy today?”
“Da, Da, Da, Da!” Then a kissing noise.
“Give Mommy a kiss,” Claire said—two months later.
“No,” the baby said determinedly. “No, no, no, no—”
“Must be having a bad day,” Horatio muttered. The days were moving too fast to count.
Chandra cleared his throat. “Time for bed, Joey.”
“No!” The baby wailed. “No bed. No bed. Mama?” He was two and possessive about his mother.
“Go to bed now, Joey,” she said patiently.
“Okay,” the three-year-old said docilely. “I wanna watch Daddy do sit-ups”
“Right now,” Chandra added firmly.
“Won’t!” The five-year-old howled. “No. I wanna play Combat Crisis—” Horatio heard heels kicking.
“Go to your room!” he thundered into his ring. “And don’t come down till you’re ready to behave.”
Joey was six and ready to behave. Chandra said in his command voice, “Initiate group play.”
“Mom! Don’t listen to Mary Blackburn, she’s just a crybaby, and I didn’t even hit her arm hard, and anyway she hit me first, and I’m telling. And I can hit harder than she can,” he finished triumphantly. They heard a door slam.
“Is she your girlfriend?” Claire said softly.
“Are you kidding?” The ten-year-old was incredulous. “I don’t have a girlfriend. And not old Elizabeth, not ever.”
“Just so you have fun. Are you having fun?”
“I guess. I don’t know.” The red clock had thirteen years on it. “Mom? Does my face look funny? I don’t look right.”
“You look lovely,” Claire said. “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine. Hey, I said I was fine. Leave me alone, will you, Mom? Jesus, you’re as bad as Dad.” The red clock had sixteen years on it.
Chandra said, “Don’t swear.”
“Dad, you swore all the time when you were my age. And it isn’t like you never heard it, or like you and Mom never screwed like Elizabeth and me. When are you going to accept that I’m not a little kid anymore? I’m eighteen. Jesus, I can’t believe this.”
Chandra, his eyes on the clock, said heavily, “You’re leaving, then.”
The voice sounded choked. “I’ll be back. I’ve wanted to be a NavTek since I was a kid. And the Navy always needs combat Polynuke Teks. Listen, I know we’ve fought, but—well, I really love you, and—” It broke down.
Chandra said, “Initiate trauma cycle.”
Claire cried, “Why?”
“Because I love her, Mom. She’s a Lefty, but that’s just her politics. You don’t know her like I do. I’ll have to leave the Navy, of course—Mom, quit crying, this is hard enough—”
Chandra said, “And the baby?” Two years had passed.
“Doing fine.” He sounded tired, or drunk. “I saw them last weekend—a simucall, not a real time visit. She has two new teeth. I don’t know, maybe Nastassia was right, maybe I’m not a good father—”
“Father,” Claire said heavily.
“Not Dad! How did it happen, when?” The voice raised, cracked. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God.” He wept.
“Do you miss your father?” Chandra said.
“Not as much.” The voice was reflective. “I dream about him, especially since Mom—I miss her a lot, Doc.”
“What else is bothering you?”
“Nothing. Really, I’m fine. Just my knees. Can’t you do some DNAltering?” He was trying to sound casual. “Do I really need a cane?” The clock read fifty years.
“Are you using your cane?” The clock read sixty.
“Never without it,” he said and coughed. “Can I sit down? You know, Doc, modern offices don’t have stairs—”
“Walking is good for you,” Claire said. The clock read seventy.
“I know what’s good for me. Time was, young lady, I told you what was good for you.” The breathing was raspier.
“How are your eyes?” Seventy-five.
“What?”
“How are your eyes?” Eighty.
“The new eyes are fine.” He sounded frightened. “It’s my nerve tissue. The doctor says it’s going—”
“Going?”
“I don’t want to.” He was panicky. “I like it here. There’s no need, my mind’s as good as ever. I feel fine—”
“Do you like it here, Joseph?”
“Why would I?” His voice was cracking, losing force. “The food’s no good, and the simulas are never bright enough, and they’re always the old ones—”
“How do you feel, Joseph?”
“Why do you keep asking that?” He was gasping. “What’s wrong with me? What aren’t you telling me?”
Claire: “Goodbye, Joseph.”
“No, wait.”
Chandra: ‘‘Goodbye, Joseph.’’
“Don’t go. Do something!”
Together: “Goodbye, Joseph.”
And a high wail, an echo of the baby’s first cry, but now it was all passion and no energy. “But I just GOT here—” Silence. Both clocks stopped.
Time elapsed, red: 95:127:14:43:16.
Time elapsed, blue: 00:000:00:10.00 LowTeks unfroze and murmured to their rings. Chandra said to Claire, “Nicely done, Doctor Mulvaney.”
“Thank you, Doctor Chandra.”
Horatio exhaled shakily. His doublet was soaked.
Hamlet was trembling. “And now?”
Chandra was making notes with his finger on a screen. “Now we run him twenty times, debugging. We suggest things, and the constructor runs it, a little slower each time. It’ll take an entire workday. Maybe longer.”
Hamlet’s voice did not show his anger. “Only twenty lives a day? Wasteful. And when you’re finished?”
“Then we’ll do global changes on all the modern references and make them Elizabethan. The exec system does that, of course. Then we’ll set a target age, run him back to it, and initiate him from there. He’ll have his own childhood, an adolescence—”
“And a planned future.”
“Well, yes.”
Horatio said, “Can he make choices?”
“Of course. He wouldn’t be human if he couldn’t.”
“Then can’t he change his future?”
/> Chandra was silent.
Hamlet said, “Choices change his future. Once he chooses, he’s his own and not yours.”
Goode said coldly, “We know how he thinks and where he ends. He half-knows one and doesn’t know the other. He’ll do what we expect.” He added, “I’ve heard that question quite a bit from administrators—” He stopped himself.
“From administrators who wanted controls, but didn’t know what you did well enough to be sure of them.” Hamlet nodded. “But you’re sure.”
“Quite sure.”
“And every time he lives, he’ll be no happier, better, or freer?”
“Never. If you’ll excuse me, I must go on.”
Hamlet smiled tightly. “You don’t choose to go?”
“I’d love to stay—” Goode began acidly.
“But you must go? Who controls your choices?” Hamlet turned. “Come, Horatio.”
Before they could leave, Goode said, “Don’t you want to see the last of the process this morning? Doctor Mulvaney, your gloves.” He put them on as he walked to one of the neuroputty tanks. “One of these is a back-up. May I take it the simula is installed in both brains?” He lifted the top of one tank.
“Of course,” Doctor Chandra said, puzzled.
“And you have a copy on Theater Access as well?” He pulled his gloves up quite high.
“Yes,” Chandra said. Hamlet was staring, frozen.
“Then we can reuse one neuroputty tank,” Goode said.
He plunged his hands into the tank and bunched his fists. Clouds of free gray matter swirled through the matrix tank, smearing its walls.
Goode peeled off the gloves. “Remember that all the android free will in the world can’t prevent that.” He stared sadly down into the tank. “Goodbye, Joe.” He looked up. “And you as well, Hamlet.”
Hamlet said, “You’ll pardon me if I don’t shake hands.” He spun away and exited.
* * * * *
Horatio caught up with him outside. At the Cloisters, Hamlet had been depressed; here he was furious.
Horatio said, “Some angel.”
Hamlet said, “They were hurting him.”
Horatio said simply, “Life’s like that. Things happened to me when I was growing up that I don’t talk about. They make me what I am, even when I don’t want them to.”
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