AIs

by Gardner Dozois

  Here he suggests that creating an A.I. with the intelligence and power of God is only the first step. Next, you have to hope that you can control it . . .

  * * *

  “It’s all inside my head,” Elin said wonderingly. It was true. A chimney swift flew overhead, and she could feel its passage through her mind. A firefly landed on her knee. It pulsed cold fire, then spread its wings and was gone, and that was a part of her, too.

  “Please try not to talk too much.” The wetware tech tightened a cinch on the table, adjusted a bone inductor. His red and green facepaint loomed over her, then receded. “This will go much faster if you cooperate.”

  Elin’s head felt light and airy. It was huge. It contained all of Magritte, from the uppermost terrace down to the trellis farms that circled the inner lake. Even the blue and white Earth that hovered just over one rock wall. They were all within her. They were all, she realized, only a model, the picture her mind assembled from sensory input. The exterior universe—the real universe—lay beyond.

  “I feel giddy.”

  “Contrast high.” The tech’s voice was neutral, disinterested. “This is a very different mode of perception from what you’re used to—you’re stoned on the novelty.”

  A catwalk leading into the nearest farm rattled within Elin’s mind as a woman in agricultural blues strode by, gourd-collecting bag swinging from her hip. It was night outside the crater, but biological day within, and the agtechs had activated tiers of arc lights at the cores of the farms. Filtered by greenery, the light was soft and watery.

  “I could live like this forever.”

  “Believe me, you’d get bored.” A rose petal fell on her cheek, and the tech brushed it off. He turned to face the two lawyers standing silently nearby. “Are the legal preliminaries over now?”

  The lawyer in orangeface nodded. The one in purple said, “Can’t her original personality be restored at all?”

  Drawing a briefcase from his pocket, the wetware tech threw up a holographic diagram between himself and the witnesses. The air filled with intricate three-dimensional tracery, red and green lines interweaving and intermeshing.

  “We’ve mapped the subject’s current personality.” He reached out to touch several junctions. “You will note that here, here, and here we have what are laughingly referred to as impossible emotional syllogisms. Any one of these renders the subject incapable of survival.”

  A thin waterfall dropped from the dome condensers to a misty pool at the topmost terrace, a bright razor slash through reality. It meandered to the edge of the next terrace and fell again.

  “A straight yes or no will suffice.”

  The tech frowned. “In theory, yes. In practical terms it’s hopeless. Remember, her personality was never recorded. The accident almost completely randomized her emotional structure—technically she’s not even human. Given a decade or two of extremely delicate memory probing, we could maybe construct a facsimile. But it would only resemble the original; it could never be the primary Elin Donnelly.”

  Elin could dimly make out the equipment for five more waterfalls, but they were not in operation at the moment. She wondered why.

  The attorney made a rude noise. “Well then, go ahead and do it. I wash my hands of this whole mess.”

  The tech bent over Elin to reposition a bone inductor. “This won’t hurt a bit,” he promised. “Just pretend that you’re at the dentist’s, having your teeth replaced.”

  She ceased to exist.

  * * *

  The new Elin Donnelly gawked at everything—desk workers in their open-air offices, a blacksnake sunning itself by the path, the stone stairs cut into the terrace walls. Her lawyer led her through a stand of saplings no higher than she, and into a meadow

  Butterflies scattered at their approach. Her gaze went from them to a small cave in the cliffs ahead, then up to the stars, as jumpy and random as the butterfly’s flight.

  “—So you’ll be stuck on the moon for a full lunation—almost a month—if you want to collect your settlement. I.G. Feuchtwaren will carry your expenses until then, drawing against their final liability. Got that?”

  And then—suddenly, jarringly—Elin could focus again. She took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I—okay.”

  “Good.” The attorney canceled her judicial advisory wetware, yanking the skull plugs and briskly wrapping them around her briefcase. “Then let’s have a drink—it’s been a long day.”

  They had arrived at the cave. “Hey, Hans!” the lawyer shouted. “Give us some service here, will you?”

  A small man with the roguish face of a comic-opera troll popped into the open, work terminal in hand. “One minute,” he said. “I’m on direct flex time—got to wrap up what I’m working on first.”

  “Okay.” The lawyer sat down on the grass. Elin watched, fascinated, as the woman toweled the paint from her face, and a new pattern of fine red and black lines, permanently tattooed into her skin, emerged from beneath.

  “Hey!” Elin said. “You’re a Jesuit.”

  “You expected IGF to ship you a lawyer from Earth orbit?” She stuck out a hand. “Donna Landis, S.J. I’m the client-overseer for the Star Maker project, but I’m also available for spiritual guidance. Mass is at nine Sunday mornings.”

  Elin leaned back against the cliff. Grapevines rustled under her weight. Already she missed the blissed-out feeling of a few minutes before. “Actually, I’m an agnostic.”

  “You were. Things may have changed.” Landis folded the towel into one pocket, unfolded a mirror from another. “Speaking of which, how do you like your new look?”

  Elin studied her reflection. Blue paint surrounded her eyes, narrowing to a point at the bridge of her nose, swooping down in a long curve to the outside. It was as if she were peering through a large blue moth, or a pair of hawk wings. There was something magical about it, something glamorous. Something very unlike her.

  “I feel like a raccoon,” she said. “This idiot mask.”

  “Best get used to it. You’ll be wearing it a lot.”

  “But what’s the point?” Elin was surprised by her own irritation. “So I’ve got a new personality; it’s still me in here. I don’t feel any weird compulsion to run amok with a knife or walk out an airlock without a suit. Nothing to warn the citizenry about, certainly.”

  “Listen,” Landis said. “Right now, you’re like a puppy tripping over its own paws because they’re too big for it. You’re a stranger to yourself—you’re going to feel angry when you don’t expect to, get sentimental over surprising things. You can’t control your emotions until you learn what they are. And until then, the rest of us deserve—”

  “What’ll you have?” Hans was back, his forehead smudged black where he had incompletely wiped off his facepaint.

  “A little warning. Oh, I don’t know, Hans. Whatever you have on tap.”

  “That’ll be Chanty. And you?” he asked Elin.

  “What’s good?”

  He laughed. “There’s no such thing as a good lunar wine. The air’s too moist. And even if it weren’t, it takes a good century to develop an adequate vineyard. But the Chanty is your basic, drinkable glug.”

  “I’ll take that, then.”

  “Good. And I’ll bring a mug for your friend, too.”

  “My friend?” She turned and saw a giant striding through the trees, towering over them, pushing them apart with two enormous hands. For a dizzy instant, she goggled in disbelief, and then the man shrank to human stature as she remembered the size of the saplings.

  He grinned, joined them. “Hi. Remember me?”

  He was a tall man, built like a spacejack, lean and angular. An untidy mass of black curls framed a face that was not quite handsome, but carried an intense freight of will.

  “I’m afraid . . .”

  “Tory Shostokovich. I reprogrammed you.”

  She studied his face carefully. Those eyes. They were fierce almost to the point of mania, but there was sadn
ess there, too, and—she thought she might be making this up—a hint of pleading, like a little boy who wants something so desperately he dare not ask for it. She could lose herself in analyzing the nuances of those eyes. “Yes,” she said at last, “I remember you now.”

  “I’m pleased.” He nodded to the Jesuit. “Father Landis.”

  She eyed him skeptically. “You don’t seem your usual morose self, Shostokovich. Is anything wrong?”

  “No, it’s just a special kind of morning.” He smiled at some private joke, returned his attention to Elin. “I thought I’d drop by and get acquainted with my former patient.” He glanced down at the ground, fleetingly shy, and then his eyes were bright and audacious again.

  How charming, Elin thought. She hoped he wasn’t too shy. And then had to glance away herself, the thought was so unlike her. “So you’re a wetware surgeon,” she said inanely.

  Hans reappeared to distribute mugs of wine, then retreated to the cave’s mouth. He sat down, workboard in lap, and patched in the skull-plugs. His face went stiff as the wetware took hold.

  “Actually,” Tory said, “I very rarely work as a wetsurgeon. An accident like yours is rare, you know—maybe once, twice a year. Mostly I work in wetware development. Currently I’m on the Star Maker project.”

  “I’ve heard that name before. Just what is it anyway?”

  Tory didn’t answer immediately. He stared down into the lake, a cool breeze from above ruffling his curls. Elin caught her breath. I hardly know this man, she thought wildly. He pointed to the island in the center of the lake, a thin, stony finger that was originally the crater’s thrust cone.

  “God lives on that island,” he said.

  Elin laughed. “Think how different history would be if He’d only had a sense of direction!” And then wanted to bite her tongue as she realized that he was not joking.

  “You’re being cute, Shostokovich,” Landis warned. She swigged down a mouthful of wine. “Jeez, that’s vile stuff.”

  Tory rubbed the back of his neck ruefully. “Mea culpa. Well, let me give you a little background. Most people think of wetware as being software for people. But that’s too simplistic, because with machines you start out blank—with a clean slate—and with people, there’s some ten million years of mental programming already crammed into their heads.

  “So to date we’ve been working with the natural wetware. We counterfeit surface traits—patience, alertness, creativity—and package them like so many boxes of bone-meal. But the human mind is vast and unmapped, and it’s time to move into the interior, for some basic research.

  “That’s the Star Maker project. It’s an exploration of the basic substructural programming of the mind. We’ve redefined the overstructure programs into an integrated system we believe will be capable of essence-programming, in one-to-one congruence with the inherent substructure of the universe.”

  “What jargonistic rot!” Landis gestured at Elin’s stoneware mug. “Drink up. The Star Maker is a piece of experimental theology that IGF dreamed up. As Tory said, it’s basic research into the nature of the mind. The Vatican Synod is providing funding so we can keep an eye on it.”

  “Nipping heresy in the bud,” Tory said sourly.

  “That’s a good part of it. This set of wetware will supposedly reshape a human mind into God. Bad theology, but there it is. They want to computer-model the infinite. Anyway, the specs were drawn up, and it was tried out on— what was the name of the test subject?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Tory said quickly.

  “Coral something-or-other.”

  Only half-listening by now, Elin unobtrusively studied Tory. He sat, legs wide, staring into his mug of Chanty. There were hard lines on his face, etched by who knew what experiences? I don’t believe in love at first sight, Elin thought. Then again, who knew what she might believe in anymore? It was a chilling thought, and she retreated from it.

  “So did this Coral become God?”

  “Patience. Anyway, the volunteer was plugged in, wiped, reprogrammed, and interviewed. Nothing useful.”

  “In one hour,” Tory said, “we learned more about the structure and composition of the universe than in all of history to date.”

  “It was deranged gibberish.” She tapped Elin’s knee. “We interviewed her, and then canceled the wetware. And what do you think happened?”

  “I’ve never been big on rhetorical questions.” Elin didn’t take her eyes off of Tory.

  “She didn’t come down. She was stuck there.”

  “Stuck?”

  Tory plucked a blade of grass, let it fall. “What happened was that we had rewired her to absolute consciousness. She was not only aware of all her mental functions, but in control of them—right down to the involuntary reflexes. Which also put her in charge of her own meta-programmer.”

  “Metaprogrammer is just a buzzword for a bundle of reflexes by which the brain is able to make changes in itself,” Landis threw in.

  “Yeah. What we didn’t take into account, though, was that she’d like being God. When we tried deprogramming her, she simply overrode our instructions and reprogrammed herself back up.”

  “The poor woman,” Elin said. And yet—what a glorious experience, to be God! Something within her thrilled to it. It would almost be worth the price.

  “Which leaves us with a woman who thinks she’s God,” Landis said. “I’m just glad we were able to hush it up. If word got out to some of those religious illiterates back on Earth—”

  “Listen,” Tory said. “I didn’t really come here to talk shop. I wanted to invite my former patient on a grand tour of the Steam Grommet Works.”

  Elin looked at him blankly. “Steam . . .”

  He swept an arm to take in all of Magritte, the green pillars and gray cliffs alike. There was something proprietary in his gesture.

  Landis eyed him suspiciously. “You two might need a chaperone,” she said. “I think I’ll tag along to keep you out of trouble.”

  Elin smiled sweetly. “Fuck off,” she said.

  * * *

  Ivy covered Tory’s geodesic trellis hut. He led the way in, stooping to touch a keyout by the doorway. “Something classical?”

  “Please.” As he began removing her jumpsuit, the holotape sprang into being, surrounding them with rich reds and cobalt blues that coalesced into stained-glass patterns in the air. Elin pulled back and clapped her hands. “It’s Chartres,” she cried, delighted. “The cathedral at Chartres!”

  “Mmmmmm.” Tory teased her down onto the grass floor.

  The north rose swelled to fill the hut. It was all angels and doves, kings and prophets, with gold lilies surrounding the central rosette. Deep and powerful, infused with gloomy light, it lap-dissolved into the lancet of Sainte Anne.

  The windows wheeled overhead as the holotape panned down the north transept to the choir, to the apse, and then up into the ambulatory. Swiftly then, it cut to the wounded Christ and the Beasts of Revelation set within the dark spaces of the west rose. The outer circle—the instruments of the Passion—closed about them.

  Elin gasped.

  The tape moved down the nave, still brightening, briefly pausing at the Vendome Chapel. Until finally the oldest window, the Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere, blazed in a frenzy of raw glory. A breeze rattled the ivy and two leaves fell through the hologram to tap against their skin, and slide to the ground.

  The Belle Verriere faded in the darkening light, and the colors ran and were washed away by a noiseless gust of rain.

  Elin let herself melt into the grass, drained and lazy, not caring if she never moved again. Beside her Tory chuckled, playfully tickled her ribs. “Do you love me? Hey? Tell me you love me.”

  “Stop!” She grabbed his arms and bit him in the side—a small, nipping bite, more threat than harm—ran a tongue over his left nipple. “Hey, listen, I hit the sack with you a half-hour after we met. What do you want?”

  “Want?” He broke her hold, rolled over on top of he
r, pinioning her wrists above her head. “I want you to know”—and suddenly he was absolutely serious, his eyes unblinking and glittery hard—“that I love you. Without doubt or qualification. I love you more than words could ever say.”

  “Tory,” she said. “Things like that take time.” The wind had died down. Not a blade of grass stirred.

  “No they don’t.” It was embarrassing looking into those eyes; she refused to look away. “I feel it. I know it. I love every way, shape, and part of you. I love you beyond time and barrier and possibility. We were meant to be lovers, fated for it, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that could ever keep us apart.” His voice was low and steady. Elin couldn’t tell whether she was thrilled or scared out of her wits.

  “Tory, I don’t know—”

  “Then wait,” he said. “It’ll come.”

  * * *

  Lying sleepless beside Tory that night, Elin thought back to her accident. And because it was a matter of stored memory, the images were crisp and undamaged.

  It happened at the end of her shift on Wheel Laboratory 19, Henry Ford Orbital Industrial Park.

  Holding theta lab flush against the hub cylinder, Elin injected ferrous glass into a molten copper alloy. Simultaneously, she plunged gamma lab a half-kilometer to the end of its arm, taking it from fractional Greenwich normal to a full nine gravities. Epsilon began crawling up its spindly arm. Using waldos, she lifted sample wafers from the quick-freeze molds in omicron. There were a hundred measurements to be made.

  Elin felt an instant’s petulant boredom, and the workboard readjusted her wetware, jacking up her attentiveness so that she leaned over the readouts in cool, detached fascination. The workboard warned her that the interfacing program was about to be shut off. Her fingers danced across the board, damping down reactions, putting the labs to bed. The wetware went quiescent.