Counting Up To Infinity

by Allen Fleishman

  David: Well, if it were a doll and you punished her by putting the doll in time-out, wouldn’t that work?

  Martin: Son, this is one of your weirder suggestions, but somehow it rings true. I’ll try it. We’ve nothing to lose.

  ***

  Martin walked up to the crib where Dee was looking at him. He started, “Dee, you hurt David.”

  Dee pouted, “But he wouldn’t let me play with Joshie. I wanted to play with Joshua. I didn’t want David.”

  Martin frowned, “You hurt David. You hurt him very bad, and you made him cry.” Martin replayed the scene of David smiling and picking Dee up. Dee then screamed that she wanted to play with Joshua more. David then patiently said, “Joshua needs to go to work.” Dee then said, “I don’t want you, I want Joshua. I want to play with Joshua. You go away or I’ll hurt you.” David stood there at the side of the crib. In the blink of an eye, Dee grabbed David’s left arm with both of hers and started to squeeze. David cried out in pain. She had an evil smile as she squeezed his wrist. There was a sound of a crack. David howled even louder. She then squeezed again and there was a second crack. David continued to cry out in horrible pain. Dee triumphantly let go with a grin. David was in tears as he ran out. Martin replayed the same scene from Hilda’s prospective. After the replay, Martin sent both to Dee five more times in fast mode.

  “You hurt David. David won’t be able to pick you up. I’m going to have to punish you.”

  Dee defiantly stared at Martin. “He wouldn’t let me play with Josh.”

  Martin looked at Dee. “I’m going to punish you. You may not play with Josh for the next four days. And for hurting David, I’m going to put Cherry in time out. He’s not allowed to play with you for ten minutes.” Martin walked up to the plant on the changing table near Dee and addressed the plant. “Cherry, Dee hurt David. We don’t allow anyone to hurt anyone else. Do you understand Cherry?” Martin had picked up the plant and held the plant so he could see Dee too. Dee was beginning to look stunned. Martin continued, “Cherry, because Dee hurt David I’m going to put this bag over you for ten minutes as punishment to Dee.”

  “NO, NO, you can’t punish Chee’our’i. You can’t.”

  Martin put a paper bag over the plant and took it out of the room. Dee started to howl.

  Ten minutes later, Martin walked back into Dee’s room holding the plant still in the paper bag. “Dee, did you learn your lesson?”

  Her eyes still red from crying, Dee looked up at her father. Her chin trembled as she said, “Yes, daddy.”

  “Are you sorry you hurt David?”

  “Yes”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry I hurt David.”

  “OK I want you to tell that to David. AND I want you to promise never to hurt him ever again.”

  Dee: David, I’m sorry I hurt your arm. I promise never to do that again.

  David: OK. You also promise not to get angry with me, even if Joshua needs to go away?

  Dee: Yes, David.

  Martin took the plant out of the bag. He held the plant up, and started talking to it, facing Dee while he talked. “Cherry, Dee said she is sorry for hurting David. I’ll let you play with Dee again. However, if Dee is naughty again I’m going to put you in timeout. So, you need to tell Dee that she’s not allowed to hurt people and has to listen to her family – her mommy, her brother David, Phyllis, Janet, Sidney, Joshua, and me. Will you tell her that?” Martin then put the plant down.

  Dee giggled. “You can’t talk to Chee’our’i. He said he’ll only talk to me.”

  Martin smiled, “I don’t expect Cherry to talk to me, but I think he heard what I had to say. And he will be punished if you’re naughty again. So unless you want Cherry to be punished, you’re going to have to be a good girl.”

  Dee looked pensive for a bit, and then said, “OK Daddy.”

  ***

  Martin: It’s been four month now since she planted that silly seed, but don’t you think that something is a bit odd with her taking it with her wherever she goes?

  Corey: It’s like any other security blanket. I think it’s cute. I mean this small little girl, with her long tresses, in her pink party dress holding up a plant that’s almost as tall as she is.

  Martin: Yes, but Joshua thinks she’s talking to it.

  Corey: It’s likely just a stage she’s going through. It’s not as if she’s cutting us out. It’s her make-believe friend. I think it’s because her mind’s going so fast, so much faster than ours go, that she’s filling the rest of her time with other things, like talking to imaginary friends. David did a calculation. He estimated that 98% of her brain’s CPU is free for other activities. She’s just filling that time up. What has me concerned is ‘Cherry’s water’.

  Martin: That brown goop?

  Corey: Yes. I smelled it and it had an odd smell to it. Something I couldn’t place. So I looked at it with my spectroscope camera. It had a peak near iodine.

  Martin: Iodine? So that’s the weird smell in the kitchen. Where did that come from?

  Corey: I asked Dee. She said she mixed some iodine and ammonia together. I asked her why and she said ‘Cherry was hungry.’

  Martin: Iodine and ammonia?? Isn’t that a very high-energy cocktail?

  Corey: Yes, the strange thing is that the plant thrives on it. I tried it on another plant and that one died within an hour. Speaking of growing like a weed, we’re going to have to go shopping for her again for size 4T. She’s getting rounder again this week, so I expect another growing spurt coming up.

  Martin: Did you ever compare the stages of growth of Cherry with a typical weeping willow?

  Corey: You’re right Marty; she must have picked up a different seed. It isn’t a willow tree.

  Martin: Try asking your assistant what species of plant Cherry is.

  Corey: Hmm, not even a low probability hit. I think that the iodine and ammonia must have stunted its growing pattern or made it mutate or something. The leaves do have an odd blue-tinge to them, but the spectroscope said it wasn’t iodine or nitrogen.

  Martin: David and Josh are still mystified about how much Dee knows. He’s ready to throw up his hands and wanted to know if it’s OK to turn on her full wireless capability and 2% of her full database.

  Corey: We might as well. Oh yes, Sidney finally told me that he and Janet have finally caved. They agreed to let Josh take Panacea. They were a bit relieved to hear that the hospital is backed up by eight months, all of whom are in much worse condition than Joshua. Josh arranged for one of the Jamaican neurosurgeons to fly in to install his new computer while he’s in his rebirth-coma.

  Martin: We’re up to 26 patients, and few negative side effects. We can’t watch television from a cathode ray tube type TV. It has to do with the higher visual bandwidth of the Home Mod One people. The 60 cycles per second refresh rate is too slow. And then there was that kid who broke his leg when he fell off his bike. Forty-eight hours later, there were no longer any signs of a break. The doctors had to re-brake it, so it could reset correctly. I think Janet’s being a bit too cautious here.

  Corey: So far no real side effects? Remember, we’re the oldest recipients of Panacea. No one knows the long-term effects of becoming a Homo Mod One, especially for a naturally computer enhanced person like Josh. Janet has either us for its effect on aging or Dionne on its effect on the computer enhanced. That’s a very small N.

  Martin: How did Dionne get her hands on tincture of iodine or ammonia? I could have sworn we got rid of them when the midwife went through the house.

  Corey: We did. I never replenished the supply.

  Corey: Marty, we’re losing control of things.

  Martin: You’re feeling that now. I’ve lost all control over twenty years ago. To paraphrase Steven Wright, ‘You know that feeling you have when you lean back on a chair to the point where it begins to
fall backwards, then move a quarter more inch further back. That’s the way I feel all the time.’

  ***

  Martin: I did a careful search of all the monitors. There is no record of any tincture of iodine or ammonia since before Dionne was born. The assistant flatly said it was impossible for it to get there, unless someone carried it in. I asked. Everyone swore they knew nothing about it. I then asked Dee, she wouldn’t say anything.

  Corey: I’m at the same impasse. I asked Dee and she just said that Cherry wanted the special liquid. When I asked where it came from, she said she made it. She refused to say where she got the iodine or ammonia.

  Martin: I snuck a small clipping off Cherry and gave it to a botanist to examine. He initially said it wasn’t from a plant, certainly not a weeping willow. I then showed him a picture of the plant and he said he’d get back to me.

  ***

  Martin: That botanist called. He said that the cell structure was a cross between a plant and a crystal. I asked about the genetics of it. He held out for a huge grant to do a complete genetic map of the weeping willow.

  ***

  In December, Roderick announced that Malcolm had become engaged to Brenda Sarnofski. The Ryans and Kleins were all invited to the Coombs home for a party.

  After the party, walking back to their home Phyllis asked David, “Did you notice anything unusual?”

  David searched his memories, “He’s walking completely normally now, she’s tremendously improved too. All symptoms of LPH Deficiency are gone. When Rod threw Malcolm that candle, Mal’s hand caught it in 1/15 of a second. I couldn’t do that.”

  Phyllis shook her head, “No, not physically, but how they were behaving.”

  “Like what?”

  Phyllis said, “Let me ask you it in another way, did they remind you of anyone?”

  “Do you mean how they were so kissy-smoochy? It was too sickly sweet for me.”

  “Yes, so kissy-smoochy. Remind you of anyone?”

  “Yeah, like Martin and Corey. At times I can’t wait to get away from them.”

  Phyllis paused, “OK, and what do Martin and his wife, and Malcolm and Brenda have in common?”

  David halted, “You don’t think that Panacea …”

  Phyllis interrupted, “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “Why would we or whoever first wrote Panacea, make them cloyingly, goopy, in love. Except to irritate people? It can’t make sense.”

  “Think about it, to promote the species, men are programmed to make as many children with as many young females as possible.”

  “I beg your pardon. I represent and resent that.”

  “Stay with me, I’m right here. Do I need to remind you that when we first met you asked me if I wanted to do IT?” David’s face turned red. He smiled his lopsided grin and then nodded.

  Phyllis continued, “On the other hand, women try to attract men who would be able to support them the best and then to hold onto him as best they can. They’re programmed to find providers and protectors.”

  “Aren’t you exaggerating a bit here?”

  “Perhaps, but let’s think aloud, with a person who will live hundreds of thousands of years. What would you program into them?”

  “Me, I wouldn’t program anything into them.”

  Phyllis stopped, looked at David and stroked his face, “You always were one of the noble ones. But to get back to the ‘Programmers’, if people would live for a very long time, they need a way to stabilize the most basic dyad, the family unit, Monogamy. And what is the best way to ensure monogamy?”

  “Being so irritatingly, sickly sweet that no one else wants to be near you?”

  Phyllis sighed and strongly resisted the urge to stupid-slap him – hard. However, she did send him an image of a stupid-slap across the back of the head so hard he did a forward flip, landing on his rump. The image was so realistic that David actually pitched forward an inch, and rubbed the back of his head as Phyllis said, “Sex and a psychic bond for just one person.”

  “But you can’t create a bond like that biochemically in humans.”

  Phyllis smiled, “Gee, I know something you don’t? Look up the naturalist Konrad Lorentz with his baby goslings. He first demonstrated imprinting. That’s where the first image the geese saw, in that case good ole Konrad, became their mother. Actually it’s easy to get a human to fixate on a bunch of things, gambling, drugs, or fetishes.”

  “Do you mean I’m going to have to put up with my dad’s newlywed gobbligoop forever?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But why would the Programmers do that?”

  Phyllis said, “For the same reasons nature or ComHead invented sex, for more heterogeneity. In the case of sex, it was done for greater variety of genes. For Panacea couples, it was done for greater variety of ideas and a better decision-making process. I mean, don’t we make better decisions together than alone? Don’t we complement one another?”

  “Is this one of those cases where I have to say yes?”

  “Uh huh, unless you want to sleep out here tonight? Sweetheart, I’ll even give you a blanket with only a few holes, just because I love you.” Phyllis smiled then batted her eyes.

  “Uh, yes then.”

  They started walking again, David asked, “OK, then why not make a third gender and have a group of three?”

  Phyllis said, “Three is very unstable, there will always be two against one. Four may be temporarily more stable with two versus two. Two is a nice stable number. Send Teacher to study Group Psychology.”

  ***

  Phyllis passed their theory on to the others. Martin scoffed saying that he was in love with Corey before the transformation. Phyllis noticed that Corey didn’t say anything.

  As a ‘field experiment’, Sidney had Dr. Brown start a support group for Panacea survivors; he made sure that it was evenly balanced by gender. He also treated all Panacea patients as pairs in the hospital room, a male and a female, at least for those who were not homosexuals.

  ***

  Only the Ryans and David went to Saint Louis for Joshua’s Panacea treatment. The treatment went exactly as expected. The only exception to the usual treatment was the removal of Joshua’s old neural interface with the updated model. The computer was inserted into his chest. All of Joshua’s old memories had been uploaded to the new computer. After the rebirth and recuperation, Joshua, with David’s help, spent the next week re-synchronizing the new neural blanket to the computer.

  David: You’re so much faster than you were before. Do you feel it too?

  Joshua: It’s indescribable. It’s not just faster, but better too. I want to try to processing Dee’s squirts again. I think I’ll be able to keep up with her now.

  David: Ah, didn’t your dad talk to you about that?

  Joshua: You mean Phyllis’ theory about Homo Mod Ones emotionally linking to one another. That’s just crazy thoughts.

  David: Dr. Brown said that in every Panacea workshop most couples linked. Don’t get me wrong. We’re like brothers, and Dee is my half-sister, but we’re not brothers in the biological definition. I can’t imagine a better person for Dee than you, but she’s only 13 months old.

  Joshua: But she now looks almost as old as I am. It seems like all the Panacea people will become 20 year olds physically.

  David: In any case, our parents said you’re going to have to be physically apart from Dionne. I think it’s a good idea too. However, they think it’s possible for you to talk to her. They believe the link is a physical biochemical one. In any case, perhaps you’d like to take a week or two off, just to get used to the new CPU and wetware.

  Joshua: Nah, I’m not one of you old farts. I’d like to try to put my new brain through its paces.

  Joshua: Hi Dee.

  Dee: Josh you’re back. I was so scared. Mom and dad said I couldn’t visit you in Saint Louis. Are you ok?

  Joshua: Ev
erything is fine. It took David and me a week to get the interface synchronized. All the connections had to be re-mapped. I noticed that I’m thinking clearer than I ever did. Much faster.

  Dee: I’m so glad.

  Joshua: Could you try to send me those squirts of data, like before. I wasn’t able to process everything you said before.

  Dee: I have been. Chee’our’i says you’re on the way to becoming sentient.

  Joshua: Uhh, thanks. I think you’re smart too.

  Dee: Chee’our’i said I needed to complete the next stage and become more human.

  Joshua: Cherry, your plant?

  Dee: Not my plant. You’re silly. If anything, I’m his pet.

  Joshua: The weeping willow plant you carry around is your master and you bark for him or something?

  Dee: Josh, you’re so funny. I carry him because if I didn’t the homo sapiens would get so annoyed with him floating next to me. And have you ever heard me barking?

  Joshua: You think your plant can talk to you? And it’s smarter than you are?

  An image of Dee appeared. She had darting laughing eyes and a big smile radiating happiness.

  Dee: I think Chee’our’i can talk to me, because it does, even before it took the form of the weeping willow sapling. And I think it’s smarter, because it is.

  Joshua: And

  Dee: One second, I need to talk to Chee’our’i a minute.

  Joshua sent a copy of the conversation to David.

  David: Is someone pulling our legs?

  Joshua: The only ones who could do that are our parents, us or Dee. Unless it’s Chee’our’i himself? I’m beginning to feel uneasy about this. Did you ever look at Cherry or Chee’our’i? Do you think Dee is actually telling you the truth?

  David: I’m going to visit Dee and talk to her.

  ***

  David entered the nursery and saw the young girl who appeared to be twelve years old. She was lounging in her bed. Although the crib was replaced, all the other aspects of the room, including the alphabet on the wall and the prancing farmyard animals were still there, including the cabinet which had been a changing table.

  David said, “Hi Sis. We’re going to need to change this room around. It might be good for a thirteen month old, but it doesn’t work for you now.”

  Dee looked up, “It doesn’t bother me. I just see what I want to see.” Her voice had a slight chill in it. Dee had apparently gone back to her own world. She had dismissed him.