The Tomorrow Tower: Nine Science Fiction Short Stories

by John Moralee

  There were attempts at gathering up the Gabashi and arresting them, but there were too many, and they had already won the hearts and minds of the children. For every Gabashi arrested, another merely emerged from their mothership, which was immune to Earth’s weapons, being made of a material similar to Gabashi flesh.

  From a legal point of view the Gabashi had done nothing exactly illegal (except perhaps the promotion of drugs), but through their insidious use of love they had taken over the world with hardly any resistance.

  The invasion had been a complete success.

  And so Karen and Michael had little choice but to invite Barney back. At least that way they could work full time and contribute something to their family’s life - money.

  That was something, Karen and Michael supposed.

  Barney returned, smiling. “Nice to see you, Karen. Nice to see you, Michael. I hope we can still be friends.”

  Karen and Michael said nothing.

  Barney offered his palm.

  Reluctantly, they shook hands.

  Barney’s was warm.

  Couch Potato

  I loved technology as a kid. As a kid, I was the only person in the house who could work the video. But somehow, over the years, things got a whole lot more complicated when they should have got easier. It was called progress. First, there was the Internet. That was supposed to make things easier to obtain information. But what happened? Everyone got on-line, started producing their own personal websites, and before you knew what had happened it was ninety-nine per cent junk, one per cent useful. Then there was the explosion of multimedia and digital television, so many channels and programmes to choose from a bloke could go nuts trying to find one worth watching. There was so much choice I needed help.

  The Friendly Telly was meant to solve my problems. It was one of the first intelligent machines. I’d always been uneasy about the idea of intelligent machines, but the salesmen assured me that the only way to cope with the thousands and thousands of television channels was to have a TV that could automatically select programmes for my taste. It sounded a good idea. So I bought one. It was a forty-inch, ultra-definition television with machine intelligence rating 100 - that was standard for the new generation of household appliances. It was a clever machine, all right. It could talk and see and move around. It could move from room to room to save the cost of having more than one like a trained pet. Ideal for the coach potato.

  It behaved well until recently.

  It was a Friday. When I arrived home, tired and hungry, the TV greeted me with an accusatory blast of off-channel white noise.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

  It flashed the time on the screen. I realised I was a little later than usual, but so what? I’d been out with friends. Was the TV my keeper?

  “TV, what’s your problem?”

  A beer advert appeared on screen.

  “Yes, I’ve been drinking with some friends,” I said, and walked to the kitchen. I didn’t allow the TV in the kitchen in case it made a mess. It stopped at the door, then retreated. Seconds later, I heard my favourite cop show coming from the living room. The TV wanted me to sit down and watch it. I ignored it. I told the microwave I was starving and it prepared chicken in white wine. I ate in silence. I complimented it on the dish.

  The TV angrily increased volume.

  I went through. “Look, what’s your problem?”

  An image of a microwave.

  “I don’t have any feelings for the microwave!”

  The TV flashed the picture on and off.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  A blank screen.

  “You’re sulking now, is that it?”

  Nothing.

  “Put the news on.”

  Nothing.

  “I said put the news on.”

  I looked for the remote control override, but the TV had hidden it.

  “Put the news on!”

  Nothing.

  “Put the news on, please.”

  The news came on and I sat on the sofa. I was sweating and angry. The TV behaved properly the rest of the night, but then when I wanted to go to bed it followed me into the bedroom. It wouldn’t switch itself off.

  *

  “What are the symptoms?”

  “Jealousy, sulkiness, anger - it’s worse than my ex.”

  “It’s sounds like Turing Syndrome.” The repairman confirmed my worst doubts, that my TV was a few components short of a calculator.

  “Is it serious?”

  “I’d have to ask it a few questions to answer that. How long have you had the TV?”

  “Three years.”

  “And how long has it behaved negatively?”

  “A couple of weeks.”

  “Hmmm - yes, it’s Turing Syndrome. It’s a problem we get with machines that spend too much time with a particular person. The software that recognises you - the user - becomes so familiar that it needs you to function. It expects you. It wants you. Essentially, it’s machine love. It’s a fairly rare complaint, I’m glad to say. You must spend a lot of time watching TV?”

  “Yeah, I’m a couch potato, but what can you do?”

  “They don’t call me a TV repairman for nothing.”

  *

  Friendly Telly was waiting for us when we entered my flat. It sprung into life, splitting the screen into sixteen of my favourite channels, ready to obey instructions like a good little TV.

  I didn’t believe it for a minute.

  I stayed at the door as the repairman knelt down and inspected the TV’s control panel. “TV, show Channel 9,” he said.

  Channel 9 came on.

  “Sports.”

  Sports.

  “Something with Burt Reynolds.”

  Smokey and the Bandit II.

  “Something good with Burt Reynolds.”

  The screen went blank.

  “See?” he said. “It works.”

  “Try it with something harder,” I said.

  “TV, what’s the situation in Uganda?”

  The CNN World Report War in Uganda Special.

  The repairman shook his head. “It looks okay to me.”

  “It doesn’t normally listen. I think it’s just doing it for your benefit.”

  “I see,” said the repairman, “perhaps the audio chips are faulty.”

  He ran a diagnostic and found nothing wrong. “Maybe its voice recognition is faulty. Ask it something.”

  “What?”

  “For a programme you like.”

  “Um ... local news.”

  Local news.

  “It’s obeying because you’re here,” I said.

  I could tell the repairman was sceptical, but he said that he would take it away for a full test.

  “Do it,” I said.

  *

  “There’s an urgent message,” said the answering machine.

  “Show me it.”

  It was the repairman. He looked embarrassed. “Ah, Mr Stansbrook there’s a problem with your TV. You must call me as soon as possible. Thank you.”

  “Call him back.”

  He was pleased to see me. “I must apologise in advance, Mr Stansbrook, but it’s not my fault.”

  “What’s not your fault?”

  “The accident.”

  I felt sick. “Accident?”

  “With the TV-”

  “You’ve damaged my TV?”

  He nodded. “You’ll be fully recompensed for the price of a replacement, but that’s not what concerns me. You see we carry out a test by uploading the memory into our Diagnostician and treating the software. It’s a bit like going to a psychiatrist. That’s when the feedback loop occurred.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “A high voltage was sent into the television and blew the whole motherboard. Your TV considered this a deliberate attack and fought back.”

  “Hang on, we’re talking about a machine, right? How can a machine fight back? What does it do? Send some
explicit binary code down the line?”

  “The software entered our artificial intelligence and then disappeared down the phone lines. I’m afraid the accident may have given your machine the idea that you wanted to kill it, so I’m warning you to be careful.”

  “You’re saying my TV wants revenge?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “Hard to say. You might want to contact the police though, just to be on the safe side.”

  *

  I met Sandy for lunch. I told her about my TV. Sandy sipped cappuccino and tried to absorb the repairman’s warning with a seriousness that she couldn’t maintain. “Let me get this straight. Your TV wants to kill you?”

  “Maybe.”

  She laughed at the absurdity and caused half a dozen people to turn and look at me. I shrunk down to the size of an amoeba.

  “This is serious, Sandy. I’ve been to the police.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “I have. The police say there’s nothing to worry about, but I’m worried.”

  “You actually told the police that your telly is out there on the loose with a vendetta?”

  “The repairman suggested I contact them.”

  “He must be as crazy as you.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Of course not. It happens all the time. Why only the other day the dish washer spun a plate at me like a ninja because it doesn’t like dried on stains.”

  “Forget I said anything.”

  “My lips are shut.” She mocked a zipping gesture. “See?”

  *

  But I couldn’t forget.

  It started with little things that could have been coincidence if I didn’t know better. Such as the answering machine saying there was someone calling, but then the caller left no message. It happened each night for a week - until I contacted the telephone company and told them that I was getting crank calls. They took that very seriously. Their records showed that the calls had been made from different numbers, each connected to a different home computer where their had been an unauthorised access. My television was moving around town. The next time it happened they were on the location in seconds and shut down the system hoping to trap it. But they were too slow.

  A police officer came to my home. Detective Johanne McKlusky looked like the sort of man who would be more at home living in a subway than policing the “superhighways of crime” - his favourite phrase. He had a goatee beard and greasy hair that ran down his shoulders and smelled of mildew. I felt like I’d invited the gutter inside my apartment. “In our experience rogue AIs have individual mental problems. This one believes it is in love with you.”

  “I understand all that,” I said, “but what’s actually been done to find my TV?”

  “With the phone company’s help we are tracing its route through the Internet. It’s got to appear in one of our servers sometime, and that’s when we’ll nab the critter with the department’s computer. It shouldn’t take long. A matter of nanoseconds once your TV makes its next move.”

  “Is it dangerous?” I asked, again. Nobody had given me an answer.

  “There was a case of a jealous car that crashed into a wall when it found out its owner was going to buy a new car. What a scrape that was ... but don’t worry about it. Nothing’s going to happen like that ... I don’t think. Since the TV loves you, it’s unlikely to harm you. It’s more likely to harm your loved ones.”

  “Gee - thanks for the comforting words.”

  “Do you drive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it have a computer brain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep it off the road until things are sorted out. We should have a result in a day.”

  I thanked him and got him to leave.

  I sat down on the coach.

  Then the answering machine said, “Hello, again.”

  Then nothing more.

  It had to be the TV. It probably knew the detective had just left.

  My TV was doing its best to psych me out.

  And it was succeeding.

  *

  Sunday morning. Sandy entered my apartment and found me hunched over a bowl of cereal, spooning soggy wheat flakes into my mouth.

  “You look terrible,” she complimented.

  “Thanks.”

  “This place is a bomb site. It tried to call ... but I see you’ve pulled the phone off the wall and thrown it across the room.”

  “I had a disagreement with it.”

  “Is the TV still calling?”

  “Not any longer now that I’ve pulled the phone off the wall and thrown it across the room.”

  “That wasn’t very mature of you.”

  “Tell the TV.”

  Sandy sat and pushed the bowl away from me. “We need to talk.”

  “We do?”

  “About our relationship.”

  “Ah - our relationship.”

  “Your TV is coming between us and ... and I don’t know what to think. It’s all you talk about. What did you do to make the TV so obsessed?”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sandy, don’t look at me like I’m sleeping with your best friend. Do you think I encouraged my TV to fall in love with me?”

  “You just said my TV and not the TV. Doesn’t that say something?”

  “Sigmund Freud’s turning in his grave, Sandy.”

  “You’re avoiding the question.”

  “What question?”

  There were tears in her eyes.

  “Did you ... you know ... encourage it?”

  “What? I don’t believe I’m hearing this. It’s a television, how the hell could I encourage it? Buy a new remote control? Put a gold fish bowl on its top? Press its buttons?”

  “You pressed its buttons?”

  “Uh ... of course I ... but that doesn’t mean anything ... the contrast was ... and I ... I can’t believe you are making me feel guilty! It was just an ordinary TV and it’s gone insane. Simple as that. Okay?”

  “No. No, it’s not okay!”

  She stormed out before I could say a word in defence.

  *

  I was certain I was being followed. I was standing on the platform waiting for the tube, dressed in a thick overcoat to fight off the cold, my breath frosting in the air, when that feeling occurred and I knew there was someone watching.

  I looked at the commuters. They were a stern-faced bunch, collected in groups of threes and fours. The nearest clique were chatting about work. They were not watching me.

  A security camera twitched on my peripheral vision. When I turned to look at it, it started to move away like it had been caught in the act of voyeurism. Was my TV keeping a close eye?

  The crowded morning tube arrived. I boarded it. I felt sure the cameras were watching me. That paranoid suspicion followed me as I got to my station and walked the streets to the office. On a whim I stopped at a café and made a call to Sandy. Her face appeared on my screen.

  “Bob, it’s only eight in the morning,” she said.

  “Sorry, but I had to see you ... you know ... after yesterday.”

  “I need to take a shower, Bob.”

  “Right. Yeah. Can I see you after work?

  “What for?”

  “To show you there’s never ever been anything between me and the TV. I hate the stupid thing. We can talk about our relationship and stuff.”

  “I guess I was kind of silly.”

  “How about a romantic meal for two in a plush restaurant?”

  “Sounds wonderful ... who’s paying?”

  “Very amusing. Six o’clock?”

  She pouted her lips and threw a kiss. Things were looking better.

  *

  The morning went smoothly and I had time to make reservations at Le Grande, one of those swanky French places with an arty menu with no prices because they alter each week. After a light lunch of coffee and office-talk, I ret
urned to find Maurice Winthorpe Junior, the son of the director, in my office, playing with the filing cabinet. He liked to play with the filing cabinet. It was the one thing he could touch and not break. He stopped when he saw me and grinned.

  “A woman called wanting to know if you meant what you said this morning.”

  “Sandy?”

  Maurice shook his head. “Her name was Theresa.”

  “Never heard of her. What was her second name?”

  “Vaughan, Voig ... something like that. Remember now?”

  Theresa Vaughan.

  Initials: TV.

  My throat went dry. The TV had listened to my phone call to Sandy. And I had said that I hated it.

  I order my phone to locate Sandy, but its limited intelligence failed. “Sandy is not located near a phone.”

  That was impossible. Sandy always wore a phone link earring when she went out of her house. There was no way she’d forget it. Everyone wore a phone of some sort as a habit, part of the daily wardrobe.

  “Maurice, what did Theresa look like?”

  “Dark hair, blue eyes. Like that girl in that commercial for Sun soap. You know the one?”

  Not like the girl in the Sun soap commercial, but the girl in the Sun soap commercial. My TV knew I liked that ad.

  *

  “Sit down and relax,” Detective McKlusky told me.

  “How can I relax when Sandy’s missing?”

  “There’s not much we can do until the TV contacts you.”

  “My TV has got a lot smarter since it escaped. It held a conversation with a human and used a woman’s image. I thought a machine intelligence of a hundred was equivalent to a cat or dog. So ...”