Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard

by Glenn Michaels

  Troubled by her short summary, Paul grimaced. “It sounds pretty silly when you put it that way. I guess you needed to be there.”

  “Then the other wizards of the world found out about you. These wizards control all the governments and cause all the bad things that happen in the world. They think you might be able to interfere with their plans, so they are trying to kill you. You escaped and are hiding here, of all places, in Chicago.”

  “Yes, in a nutshell, you’ve got it,” Paul unenthusiastically confessed.

  She looked at him with a quizzical expression. “And now you are putting together a big master plan to start a war with them. All by yourself. A war against the rest of the world.”

  He shrugged dispassionately. “Again, it loses something in the translation when you put it that way.”

  “And you lied to me to keep your identity secret and to protect me in case the bad guys find you and maybe hurt me in the process.”

  “That’s the whole story, yes,” he unhappily acknowledged.

  She rubbed her brow and then shook her head in an attempt to get it all to make sense. “This would make a terrible movie.”

  Paul shrugged again. “I’ve seen worse. Dark Star, for instance. The Atomic Submarine, for another, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes—”

  “On the other hand, this is all like some fantastic fairy tale,” she observed with a sly disbelieving smile, interrupting his litany. “And for once, I get to play the part of the princess. Who would have thought?”

  Leaning forward, Capie was suddenly more serious, “If you wanted to commit suicide, and you wanted to protect me from the bad guys, why did you stick around? You could have left at any time in the last two months. Why didn’t you?”

  Paul chortled. “That’s easy. Because I fell in love with you.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “I know now how you found the Deverry books for me. You used magic, didn’t you? If you have magical powers and if you love me, why haven’t you, ah....”

  He smiled. “Given you more gifts? Something like these?” And with a snap of his fingers, a portal opened up to the car and the two highly decorated, wrapped gifts floated through.

  Capie gasped at the two presents, one wrapped in gorgeous white-laced paper topped with four gold ribbons, the other package a brilliant red, all laced with pink ribbons and a large, fluffy white bow.

  Gingerly, she took the red box out of the air and sat it in her lap, staring at the paper.

  “I’ve never seen a box wrapped like this!” she proclaimed.

  “What’s inside is even better,” Paul said with a huge smile.

  Slowly, she peeled back the paper. When she had enough of it pulled back, the writing on the box revealed the contents.

  “Gourmet chocolates!” she gasped. “And from Richart Paris, too! One of Europe’s finest! Oh, I absolutely adore gourmet chocolates! Oh, thank you, thank you!”

  And she reached out to grab his hand, pulling him forward and bestowing a kiss upon his cheek.

  It took a spell to keep his face from flushing red.

  “Try the second box,” he hurriedly suggested.

  Laying the chocolates on the breakfast-nook table, Capie reached forward for the white box. With trembling hands, she unwrapped it. Unlike the first box, this one had no writing on it at all.

  Lifting the lid, she peeked inside.

  And her mouth dropped open, her eyes wide in shock.

  Paul reached forth and lifted the platinum and diamond necklace from the velvet-lined interior.

  “I think this should establish my bona fides as a wizard, don’t you think?” he pronounced with a crooked smile as he stretched forth to clasp the necklace around her neck.

  For several seconds, Capie was totally speechless, barely able to lift the large diamond at the end of the necklace for a closer look.

  “Is this real?” she was finally able to ask.

  Truthfully, Paul was pretty proud of his work and her reaction to the gift was worth all the effort he had put into it. “Yes, those are diamonds. And the metal is all platinum. I, ah, borrowed the design from some of the works of Europe’s finest jewelers. Do you like it?”

  “This is mine?” she gasped. “Really mine?”

  “Yes. All yours. To show you how much I love you.”

  His words seemed to break the spell on her, at least in part. She gulped twice, then sighed and shook her head. “So, what do we do about that? Now that you know that I love you and vice versa.”

  “That’s a good question. Most people that are in love usually get married.”

  Capie blinked and looked at him expectantly. “Is that a proposal?”

  Paul shook his head in return. “Not just yet. I am a traditionalist. When I propose, I will do so on bended knee with a ring in hand. What I am saying right now is that there are two major issues before us that must be addressed first.”

  “Two?” she asked, puzzled by the change in the direction of their conversation.

  Paul moved to a chair near her and gently took her hand in his. “Yes. First, to decide if the risk to you is acceptable. I know what your father would say. And believe me, I am having serious concerns about it myself. But you have a say in this too, especially since it is your life at risk.”

  She seemed to consider this for a few seconds. “Why not just give up this crazy plan of yours?” She raised her other hand to stop him from interrupting her. “Now, don’t get me wrong. I hate the idea of a group of wizards using the people of Earth for their own selfish purposes. And like you, the thought of 500 million people dying in the next war bothers me a lot. You’ve explained that you have a plan, and by the way, I am dying to know more about that plan, but let’s be realistic here. Just what are your chances of success?”

  Paul nodded in understanding of her doubts. “And what’s the alternative? To hide for the rest of my life? Would you consider living life on the run? Abandoning your father? Because as sure as God makes little red apples, they will eventually track me down here in Chicago and I’ll have to move on. Would you be happy living that way?”

  “Green apples,” she corrected him. “And you are right. I wouldn’t like that at all. I want roots and stability. What’s the second issue you mentioned?”

  “Magical powers,” Paul said in reply. “I made a vow with the genie not to use them to kill anyone or to misuse my powers. Now, technically, some people might say that I’ve broken that pledge since five Oni are now dead because of me. But I didn’t kill them, not directly. They died chasing me, and since they died trying to kill or capture me, I can’t get very worked up about it.”

  And then he looked her in the eye. “But you must make the same vow. Not to misuse your powers or kill anyone.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “What powers...? Oh, my Aunt Sally! Are you saying that you would make me a wizard too?!”

  Shrewdly, Paul gazed at her, studying her reaction. “That’s the danger in sharing my life, my dear. You can’t fight by my side in a wheelchair, not in this kind of war. And the best way to cure you is to give you the power to heal yourself,” he said by way of explanation. “Of course, the moment you become a wizard, you can’t go back. They will hunt you down just as stanchly as they are hunting me.”

  Capie stared at him, wide-eyed, her jaw dropping. “Me? A wizard? With real magical powers?” she asked, her voice squeaking like a mouse. She looked down at her legs, so thin and twisted. “I could walk again? Be a whole person? Maybe even have children?”

  Paul chuckled. “Yes, even that. Assuming you live long enough to do so with 300 wizards chasing you and trying to kill you.”

  “I...I...I don’t know what to say,” she stammered.

  “Then you should sleep on it,” Paul softly suggested, with the complete understanding that all of this was hitting her out of the blue, without giving her the time to understand all of its ramifications. “You have time to carefully consider your options. And know this: I love
you no matter what you decide. And I won’t try to influence your decision. Well, at least not too much.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her. Eagerly, she responded in kind. Paul would swear later that his socks curled, it was so passionate a kiss.

  THIRTY

  Naperville, Illinois

  East Bauer Road

  Two-bedroom rental house

  May

  Monday, 5:06 p.m. CST

  Paul decided to deliberately leave her on her own for a few days. She promised to call him no matter what she decided. The way he saw it, she deserved the space and the time to make that decision all by herself. Even though the waiting was killing him.

  On Monday, Paul made a trip down to Fry’s Electronics and purchased a brand-new desktop computer, with a sixteen core Xeon 5.2 GHz CPU, 128 GB of RAM, a 1 TB SSD and four 16 TB hard drives in a RAID 10 configuration. The sales guy also suggested a video card, assuming that Paul wanted the computer for gaming purposes, an understandable, but incorrect guess on his part.

  Paul set up the computer on the same card table as the unfinished emerald and plugged the power cord into a surge protector. A LAN cable tied the PC to a modem and from there to the Internet.

  In truth, Paul didn’t need the new computer for accessing the Internet. This he could do anytime from almost anywhere on the globe using a magical spell. But the PC was an essential component of another important element of the Master Plan. And it was time to begin exploring the possibilities involved.

  “In the name of Dr. Richard Daystrom, Dr. Chandra, and Dr. Noonian Soong, may a virtual computer programming expert in the field of artificial intelligence appear before me.”

  A tall, thin man in his late twenties, with long unkempt red hair, a thin mustache, a scraggly beard, and rimless glasses materialized in front of Paul.

  He looked around and shrugged in clueless acceptance. “What you got going?”

  “I want to develop an artificial intelligence,” Paul explained to him, “and you are going to help me.”

  “You are? I am?” the redhead looked askance, not believing that anyone could seriously suggest such a thing. “Good luck with that! It’s been the holy grail of computer programmers for a hundred years.”

  “Yes, but none of them had magical powers to help them,” Paul pointed out confidently.

  “Trust me. I don’t think that would have helped them any,” the computer expert fired back.

  “I can guess at the problems,” Paul admitted candidly. “Insufficient CPU processing power, for one. And mapping intelligence into algorithms in a way that computers could duplicate, for another.”

  “In general, yes,” the computer geek readily agreed. “In terms of processing power, I once saw an estimate of human brainpower to be roughly equal to 100 million MIPS or 100 million million instructions per second. The fastest PC I’ve seen runs around 100,000 MIPS or roughly 1,000th of the needed speed. A mainframe would do better, but even they are not up to snuff.”

  The young expert shuffled his feet. “And the algorithms are just impossible. I mean, try breaking it down into subsets. An artificial intelligence must be capable of learning, of visual perception and comprehension, of the ability to understand and use language, achieve deductive reasoning and the solving of problems, of the ability to think in future terms, to make plans, and to interface with other intelligences, of manipulating objects, and of thinking creatively. There are programs that attempt to do some of those functions, but none of them very successfully, let alone all of them at the same time.”

  “I see.” Paul pondered his next words for several moments. “Then with the current technology, you think this is impossible?”

  “I do,” the hologram resolutely declared. “Someday, it will be possible. I just don’t believe that the current computer programming languages are up to the task. In my honest, humble opinion, I think a whole new computer language will be needed, one that more closely mirrors the way that the human mind works. We’re just not there yet.”

  “Okay, so you don’t think we can develop an AI from the ground up. What about if we copy a human intelligence and superimpose it on a computer?”

  The redhead chuckled and shook his head. “Sorry, that won’t work either, for several reasons. First, as I said, the computer would be a thousand times too slow. Second, it’s a waste of system resources. The brain does so much more than house our thoughts. It also regulates heart rate, respiration, hormone production, muscle activity, and a host of other functions, none of which would need to be duplicated in a computer.”

  “You make a good point,” Paul unwillingly admitted.

  “Third, the languages of the brain and computers are incompatible. As I said, a whole new language is needed. The processes of the brain wouldn’t run in a CPU.”

  “So, this isn’t going to be easy.” Why was it that all the things worth doing in this world were really hard to do? “This is an important element of my Master Plan. We are going to find a way to do this, even if we have to invent that new computer language. So, you are the expert. Where should we start?”

  The tall, thin image blinked several times in surprise and disbelief. “Well, okay, you say you have magical powers. Can you get us inside the computer?”

  Paul rubbed his jaw, thinking. “You mean like in The Matrix? Sure. Let’s power up the desktop.”

  With the monitor on, a press of the power button on the PC case turned the computer on as well, and within a couple of minutes, the display revealed the standard Windows desktop screen.

  Paul placed his fingertips lightly on the keyboard and closed his eyes. “In the name of the USS Enterprise holodeck, The Matrix, and Tron, let us see ourselves in virtual reality inside this desktop computer.”

  • • • •

  A small room materialized around them, with dark gray walls, ceiling, and floor. In the center of the room, a large collection of brightly colored strings of lights were woven in a complex pattern, some of which were constantly dancing and shifting around. Other light strings seemed less brightly lit and stayed frozen in place.

  The computer expert pointed at the lights. “That’s the desktop operating system. What we see is a symbolic representation of the code, not the actual programming itself. Take a close look at it.”

  Paul moved closer in curiosity and studied it intently. “It’s pretty, but why do some of the light strands move more than the others? Why are there blank spots, and why does the movement seem so jerky and....”

  “Random? Good observation. It’s because memory utilization is of secondary importance,” the image explained to Paul. “In the early days of computers, when even mainframe memory was measured in a few kilobytes, operational programs were kept to a bare minimum. Every byte of space was precious and could not be wasted.”

  Paul nodded, remembering his first college computer course. “Yes, of course. Then memory size increased and prices came down. Now, the size of the programs isn’t very important.”

  “Exactly.” The expert waved his hand around to indicate the whole room. “All of this is the RAM space in the desktop. It doesn’t seem very large to us, but it’s all relative. It’s because we are so large in terms of processing power and memory requirements, and even then, we are not totally here, only a small part of our vision and hearing. The large majority of our personalities are still in our physical brains.”

  Paul nodded in understanding. “If we put an AI in here, we will have to use the RAM as efficiently as possible to squeeze everything in. And the first thing we would have to do is trim that down to the basics,” Paul said, pointing to the operating system.

  “There are some functions it performs that we can use,” the programmer told him. “So we do need an operating system of sorts. I would recommend a modified version of one of the early Microsoft programs, such as Windows 3.1, to reduce the size of the programming.”

  Paul liked his suggestion. “Yes, of course. We do need an operating system that accesses the hard dr
ives, the DVD drive, and the input/output ports. Oh, and a USB camera and microphone too. Beyond that, we don’t need to interface with much. Certainly not any commercially available software.” A new thought struck him. “You say this is symbolically represented?”

  The computer expert casually nodded. “Yes, sort of like National Instruments LabView, but not as complicated and not as high level. These are more like subroutines.”

  “Could we do the same thing in a human mind? Could we symbolically represent the processes there?” Paul inquired.

  The young expert looked at the floor, obviously deep in thought. “A human mind? The symbology of its thought processes, data flow, and storage? Possibly. It would be terribly complex. You’re thinking that we could copy the symbols and general flow paths?”

  Paul nodded. “Yes. Oh, we wouldn’t copy the whole thing. As you said, there are many processes we won’t need. And even the ones we do copy will likely not be very efficient. We just need to understand how human intelligence works and then develop code that approximates it without taking up so much room or processing power.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” the other doubtfully replied. “But it could take a few lifetimes to do.”

  “Then the sooner we get started, the better,” Paul observed. “We’ll start with my brain.”

  • • • •

  For the next few hours, they traipsed around the inside of Paul’s head, watching the symbolic flow of information, studying how it was processed and stored and how Paul operated as a self-aware assembly. Several times, Paul used magical spells to help them understand the details of what they were seeing.

  The AI programmer was correct. The amount of data they needed to understand was overwhelming and would take quite some time to go through. Still, Paul was encouraged. They did make some progress, tiny as it was for the time being. But it was at least theoretically possible.