by David Reiss
“Mm.” Whisper disagreed, then offered a shy smile. “Amelia was bored, and I wanted to meet your friends!”
They weren’t my friends, precisely; they were A.H. Biotech’s executive officers and senior management, hosted for a semi-casual catered dinner at Terrance Markham’s estate. Senior staff were gathered in order to discuss the profit potential of a project to recycle ocean-borne plastic debris: Our polyethylene-digesting genetically-engineered bacterium was approved for testing, and clearing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch seemed as though it would make for a remarkable public-relations coup.
More than three months had passed since Whisper and I returned to Boston. The transition had generally been smooth; she’d settled well into her new home and a law firm renowned for their incorruptible discretion assisted in the process of granting me guardianship for Whisper. We’d even been working on a new semi-organic human-appearing body for her to pilot so that we could introduce her to the world.
That project, unfortunately, was still a few days away from completion. Whisper blinked her glowing-blue eyes and timidly wandered over to take my hand.
“Everyone, I’d like you all to meet my ward, Whisper,” I chuckled awkwardly and lifted the delicate android up into my lap. “Whisper, these are a few of the people I work with. Kimberly Caine is the Director of Sales at AH Biotech, Ananya Singh is our Chief Financial Officer…”
I went around the table, making polite introductions. AH Biotech’s senior staff reacted with varying levels of curiosity and quiet professionalism. I felt a sudden surge of pride; with the marvels being created at AH Biotech, generating a profit would have been simple. Finding staff that intended to make a profit but were also willing to consider funding massive ecological restoration efforts, and who politely smile when exposed to a childlike android…that was a genuine achievement.
“You didn’t introduce Amelia!” Whisper objected.
“I thought that you should introduce her.”
“Mm!” she acknowledged, beaming at the assembled managers. “This is Amelia…She’s a doll, but she’s my favorite! We have tea parties every Thursday.”
“What is Amelia’s favorite tea?” asked Aaron Schwartz (our CIO). He had a daughter Whisper’s mental age, I remembered.
“Amelia’s a doll.” Whisper looked at Aaron as though he might be unhinged. “She doesn’t drink real tea. We drink pretend tea.”
“Well, what’s Amelia’s favorite pretend tea then?”
Whisper considered, then smiled brightly. “Green tea! Amelia likes the pretend anti-oxidants!”
“Pretend green tea is my favorite, too,” Aaron nodded solemnly. “My very most favorite type is pretend Genmaicha.”
“What’s Genmaicha?” she tilted her head curiously.
“Genmaicha is a green tea blend that is brewed with toasted brown rice.”
It would have taken a fraction of a second for the little AI to have sought out the answer herself using the Internet or other online resources; data received during conversation, however, was more efficiently integrated into the quantum cloud that was her psyche. I imagined that she was accomplishing both methods simultaneously: absorbing vast volumes of digital information about the science and history of green tea production, at the same time that she was experiencing the subtle emotional associations from the conversation.
Whisper twisted to look up at me. “Do you have Genmaicha?”
“No,” I laughed, “I’m afraid not.”
“You should get some,” Whisper instructed. “Amelia and I are drinking pretend Genmaicha on Thursday.”
I looked to Aaron for help and he recommended a tea shop on Tremont Street. And just like that, the ice was broken. The executives’ talk of finances and publicity were abandoned in favor of learning about my new ward.
Whisper looked giddy; this, I realized, was probably the first time that she’d been the center of attention within a group. Despite her excitement, she kept to our cover stories and masterfully avoided revealing unsavory information about her creator, or about my own criminal endeavors as Doctor Fid. Smart girl. She stayed, answered their questions and asked questions of her own. When the topic of our meeting came up, she reacted as though their decision were a fait accompli and thanked them for trying to save the world she was growing up in. They all sat a bit taller, and I knew that the project would now go forward.
Smart, and devious.
Eventually, my little sister decided that she wanted to read a book. I lowered her to the ground; she curtseyed adorably to my guests and then scampered off.
“She’s very bold,” Ananya admired. “My son hides when my coworkers visit.”
“She is,” I chuckled proudly, “More brave than I’d been when I was her age.”
“How old is she?” Kimberly asked.
“She’s nine.”
The truth was significantly more complicated. For an artificial intelligence, chronological age did not necessarily reflect psychological maturity or intellectual growth. Her psyche was coded to advance at human rates, but her evolution was also affected by hardware constraints and limited social interaction. The past few months had prompted me to familiarize myself with much of the modern research on cognitive development, though, and I was confident that my approximation was reasonably accurate.
“Is she one of the Legion refugees?” Aaron asked.
A few years back, a large spacecraft crash-landed in Colorado. The wounded and weary surviving passengers were aliens, members of a dozen separate species that claimed to be escaping from an intergalactic empire whose name roughly translated to 'Legion'. Star-faring members of the New York Shield confirmed that the Legion existed, and the marooned foreigners had since been granted refugee status by presidential determination.
“No, she's an earthly creation.” I managed an affectionate smile, though my mind was still racing to evaluate plausible lies or possible disambiguations. I settled on the truth that we’d been planning on eventually revealing: “An android, actually. Her creator passed away...”
My guests made the appropriate sounds of awe and appreciation. They were, all of them, intelligent and observant; that they’d all apparently accepted that she was a biological being was a remarkable testament to Apotheosis' creative talent. And to Whisper's adorable personality, of course.
“Have you considered selling copies of her? There’s probably a market for that sort of thing.”
“Even if it were technically feasible,” my smile grew brittle as I turned towards the speaker, “I would prefer that A.H. Biotech not move into the business of slavery.”
“What? No, I meant just simple automatons. Expert systems.” Victor Leighton, my CTO, raised his hands defensively. “Just models based on her body itself. I wasn’t thinking…Jesus, Terry.”
Nodding, I recognized that I was, perhaps, a bit overly sensitive on this issue. The legal status of artificial sentiences was somewhat vague at the moment; there simply weren’t enough artificial beings around for a legal precedent to have been established. The superhero Cuboid had been active for eight years now, but his pay and legal liability issues were all handled by his creator. The villainous Mr. Mysterious had been tried and jailed, but the judge stated in his decision that the law only applied because Mr. Mysterious was a full-brain-recording of a human adult.
Though Whisper was legally my ward, her status as a citizen was more nebulous. I’d hoped to have a more human-like body ready before introducing her to the world; appearances matter when attempting to sway public opinion or the courts.
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable with releasing versions of that particular model, but we have patents on cybernetics and other components. Put together a prospectus,” I finally answered my chief technical officer.
“Ok. Yeah, ok.”
“Our sales force is focused on biotech innovations,” Kimberly noted. “That’s where all of our contacts and expertise is. Robotics might be a hard sell.”
“Patent then outsource?”
Aaron suggested.
Victor nodded. “That’s what I was thinking, actually. License it to Pierce or NFT, let them figure out how to market ’em.”
I sat back and let my executive staff brainstorm. For the first time, it occurred to me that these people would be harmed if Doctor Fid were ever unmasked. Swarms of reporters would follow them home, asking leading questions, hinting at responsibility, at guilt...it would be difficult for them to find work and more difficult to find peace. I resolved to write personal letters of explanation to each, as well as to funnel money into hidden accounts to offset any of their losses incurred by the inevitable decline of AH Biotech's stock in the event that their CEO were revealed to be a notorious supervillain.
The threat did not feel immediate. I hadn't felt compelled to don Fid's armor in some time, now, and the Doctor had not been seen in public since trouncing Blockbuster in New York. The general consensus among self-appointed experts on the online forums was that he had retreated to a foreign laboratory to grow a new arm for himself.
Always a foreign laboratory. Was it wish fulfillment, I wondered? Did they simply imagine that any sufficiently powerful individual could only choose to recuperate on a private beach, sipping mai tais and watching the sun set over Caribbean seas? Or did that supposition reflect a darker and more fearful need to make Doctor Fid alien, other: an outsider who prefers the company of foreigners? No matter the cause, the rumor mill had proven useful in the past. I occasionally infiltrated the supposedly-secure databases of several superhero organizations and modified their official profiles on me to reflect the more popular rumors. The Guardians 'knew' that I retreated to Cuba when my heavy-combat drones were in need of repair, because their records showed that the information had been verified by a Florida-based superhero team’s former member who’d perished from injuries taken in combat. That Florida-based team could check their records and would find references to paid informants, sightings cited by reputable-appearing news sources and links to a New York Shield database, which in turn referenced an incident mentioned on a San Francisco Paragons server...and any general internet search would just find link after link of corroborating online speculation. I'd never even been to Cuba, but two U.S. Presidents have required that the Castro regime turn over my imaginary lairs before any deal could be reached to remove international sanctions.
Doctor Fid would not remain quiescent forever. I still had plans, tasks in mind that could not be accomplished by board meetings and corporate research. Starnyx might require more overt assistance in his ongoing campaign to bring Beazd's killers to justice. Also, it was inevitable that some so-called 'hero' (Gamma!) would eventually perform some publicly crass or immoral act and thus earn the Doctor's special attention. Fid would eventually return to active villainy and the risk of being unmasked would always be present.
Should I step down as CEO of AH Biotech? Could I? The company relied heavily upon Terrance Markham's portfolio of patents and research. It would take a concerted (and possibly attention-getting) effort to divorce myself from the company. Even then, a public revelation would be a publicity nightmare. So no...I would prepare what assistance that I could offer towards those who worked alongside me in good faith, but Fid's work must take precedence.
The meeting ran on, and it was late before the last of my guests excused themselves and wandered back to their cars. I smiled fondly; these were good people, and it would certainly be preferable if no damage fell upon them.
(The neurosurgically-induced sociopathy that I’d inflicted upon myself before donning the Mk 2 armor had been reversed more than a decade ago, but trace scarring, regular adrenaline dumps, and the neuro- and bio- feedback from combat-programming continued to have predictable impacts upon my ability to form close emotional bonds. It was possible that the effect was now fading; a detailed diagnostic of the repairs being performed by my medical nanites would be required before I could render judgement.)
I found Whisper playing in her room. She’d constructed a makeshift palace from brightly-colored blankets, sheets and bedding. Created by one villain and adopted by another, with a psyche spread across a global array of supercomputers...and reading quietly to a doll in a haphazard pillow-structure. Remarkable.
“Whisper? I'm sorry for interrupting,” I cleared my throat. “Do you have a moment to talk?”
“Mm.” I heard movement, quiet and careful. After a few moments, she called, “Come inside!”
I chuckled and carefully snaked under the blankets into the enclosure. Unsurprisingly, the blanket-edifice was sized more appropriately for a delicate little android girl than it was for a middle-aged CEO (or supervillain). Dolls and stuffed animals had been arranged around a small plastic table, and a stack of books was set near the back ‘wall’. If I shifted wrong, if I twisted or stretched then the entire structure would collapse around us. And yet...it was beautiful. The room's light filtered through pastel fabrics, and Whisper's smile was shyly proud.
“Thank you for the invitation.” I smiled and carefully sat up, cross-legged. “No tea today?”
“Tea is on Thursday,” Whisper reminded me, settling into an uneven kneeling position. “Today is Monday.”
“Oh, yes. You're right,” I chuckled. “Monday is the night I planned to have my coworkers over for dinner.”
“Mm!”
“Do you remember what you were supposed to do on Monday night?” I asked, gently.
“Mm,” she acknowledged again. She shifted her weight onto one knee for a moment before setting down. “I'm sorry.”
“It's all right. I only thought that we had agreed?”
“We did.” She looked down at her knees. “It's just...I tapped the video and audio feeds from your security system, and your friends seemed so nice and I wanted to meet them, too.”
“They are nice,” I agreed, “But we had a plan for introducing you to the world, and now the plan is going to have to change.”
“They were here, and I didn't want to be alone anymore.” Her voice quivered. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't be sorry.” I gathered her up into a gentle hug, which she returned gratefully. “I know that you were alone in your father's bunker for a long time. I shouldn't have asked you to stay hidden.”
“Your friends really are nice. I like them,” she confided. “Are we really going to have to change your plan?”
“I'm afraid so.”
“Good.” The little android murmured. “I think your plan wasn’t right.”
“Oh?”
“You have a lot of equations and algorithms on your servers. For predicting societal evolution and changing civil dynamics, I mean.” Whisper seemed strangely embarrassed. “You used them, to figure out how and when you wanted to introduce me, right?”
“I did...but we can come up with a new plan,” I smiled reassuringly. “I predicted a relatively narrow window of time in which our first attempt to legitimize the legal rights of artificial beings would be mostly likely to succeed. This is...early, but not impossible.”
“It's not early,” she insisted quietly. “Your equations were wrong.”
Oh-ho!
“How so?” I asked.
“There's a subsection on predicting public acceptance of new technologies...”
“Yes,” I acknowledged, mentally reviewing the algorithms that I'd programmed to poll news organizations and social media for commentary on scientific issues, and to graph ranges of social response. “Ideally, this should be a political issue rather than a courtroom battle, and if we push too soon we won't be able to generate public support. Wait too long and corporations will have started investing in creating their own AIs, and will lobby against us—”
“It's not early,” Whisper repeated, her expression mischievous. “There was a variable that you didn't account for. A big one.”
“I believe you, smart girl. What did I miss?”
“Doctor Fid!” she laughed brightly.
I opened my mouth to respond, paused, and then pursed my lips
in thought. Whisper hugged me again, tighter.
“An entire generation has grown up seeing Doctor Fid on the news,” she explained, smiling. “Other people too, like my Daddy. Everyone knows that ‘state of the art’ isn't even close to the limits of what's possible. If Terry Markham introduces an artificial sentience to the public, no one is going to think ‘That's impossible!’.”
“And what will they think, then?”
“They'll think: 'Well, thank goodness that she wasn't created by a supervillain!'.”
Inorganic sentiences may, on occasion, be somewhat impulsive…but they are clever, too. Also endearing. I tickled at her sides; Whisper shrieked in laughter and batted at my hands, and we played until I accidentally pulled the blanket-palace down around us both.
◊◊◊
“Hey, Doc.”
“Eric!” Fortunately, I'd been in one of my private labs when the alert chimed, so I'd been able to pull up the custom vid-chat app without worry of being observed. “Were your ears burning? I was just thinking of you.”
“Nothing bad, I hope?” Starnyx grinned easily.
“Of course not,” I laughed, pleased; he looked much better than when last I'd seen him. More focused and relaxed. He must have made some significant progress in his ongoing quest to hold the New York Shield accountable for their misdeeds. “Why the sudden call? Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, things are fine...I was hoping to ask a favor, though.”
“We can trade favors, then. What do you need?”
“I was hoping to borrow a few of your construction drones. I have an idea for the next FTW broadcast.”
“Easily managed.” I checked the status of my arsenal. Hm. Whisper had apparently borrowed a few construction drones for a private project, herself. Curious. Still, I had spares available. “I have four construction drones available in the Tri-state area. I can have more transported if you need them.”
“I'm only expecting to need two for the heavy lifting,” he chuckled. “I appreciate it.”