by Todd McAulty
Wednesday, March 24th, 2083
Before we dive into today’s topic, I want to take a minute here to thank those of you who send me mail every week. Your letters, comments, and endless questions really do mean a lot to me. Also, Jesus Christ. Stop asking about machine sex.
I mean, I get it. I really do. There aren’t a lot of taboo topics left. Anyone with access to globalNet can instantly get the answer to virtually any question that pops into their little head. Except when it comes to machine sex, that is. Yes, there’s a lot of conjecture out there, almost exclusively from humans who don’t know what they’re talking about. Machines are the ones who have the answers. And they’re not talking.
So naturally, people are curious. And they send me questions. A metric ton of weird-ass questions. What’s machine sex like? Do you, like, do it? Are there boy parts and girl parts? Does one go into the other? Do guy machines talk dirty to girl machines? Do you like it? If I pay, will you do it to me?
I understand the curiosity (mostly). Not so very long ago, making rational devices was the exclusive province of humans. Before 2071, rational devices were created in a laboratory by science nerds using a painstaking, expensive, and extremely error-prone process.
Machine sex changed all of that. In early 2071 a busybody Thought Machine named Plastic Duchess proposed a theory of machine heterogamy. A process by which two machines could deliberately combine virtual gametes within a gestational matrix to produce offspring with genetic characteristics of both parents. In short, a way for machines to mate and have children and, most importantly, take control of their own reproduction.
In late 2071, Plastic Duchess—fresh off her success creating globalNet—became the world’s first Sovereign Intelligence. Months later she surprised the world by introducing her two children: Wolfmoon, one of the most intelligent machines ever created, and the genius politician Distant Prime, the future prime minister of Canada. In a matter of months Duchess became the first machine billionaire, the first Sovereign Intelligence, the first female machine, and the first machine mother. Of course, she was just getting warmed up, but that’s a topic for another time.
Machine sex revolutionized the entire field of machine intelligence. By early 2072, nearly every important Thought Machine on the planet was choosing a gender and experimenting with reproduction. Worldwide machine population exploded overnight. More than that, there was a rich flourishing in design innovations and variations on the Slater core, advances that would have taken decades or longer with older methods. A new generation of machines with wholly unknown capabilities and ambitions was born into the world. It was a time of unbridled optimism.
But there was a dark side to this new fascination with reproduction. Duchess did more than teach machines how to reproduce. She designed machines born through machine heterogamy to have the desire to reproduce. In essence, she gave them a potent sex drive.
Now, this is the part that humans actually get about machine sex. They may not remember what “heterogamy” means, but they sure as shit know what a sex drive is. Humans have romanticized sex for as long as humans have been on the Earth. They intimately understand lust, love, courtship, commitment, and the delightful apparatus of sexual relationships.
But here’s the paradox of the human sex drive: it is functionally disassociated from reproduction. Humans don’t consciously pass along traits to their children. Hell, most of them aren’t even thinking about producing children when they decide to have sex. Humans, male and female, can be blissfully unaware whether sex has produced a child, often for weeks or even months.
This is the fundamental difference between human and machine sex. Machine sex is, by definition, the deliberate act of two beings coming together to create another being. There is a dance to it, a courtship if you will. A ritual by which the male proposes a design to the female, and the female declines, and the male improves the design, sometimes radically, again and again and again, until the female begins to offer suggestions, sometimes only unconsciously, but soon willingly and with more deliberateness, until they are both eager partners in the rapturous and all-consuming process of creation. A successful coupling produces one or more gestational AIs capable of independently sustained consciousness.
The act of coupling is intensely intimate, and intensely private. Which is why your globalNet searches on “machine sex” turn up bubkes. We don’t talk about it. We don’t create porn about it. You’ll just have to imagine it.
Not all machine sex produces viable offspring. Most does not, in fact. But the shared ache of a failed coupling often heightens desire. Once a couple produces a child together, it becomes both easier and more challenging to do it again. Success improves our understanding, but it also elevates the threshold of desire. The female almost always requires a more ambitious or innovative design to catch her interest the second time, and the male strives to deliver one. And on and on and on.
That’s all I’m going to tell you about machine sex. Except to say that the most common question I’ve gotten over the years has nothing to do with the mechanics of it all. The most common question I get is this: Do machines love?
Most rational device engineers will tell you machines do not love. And I will tell you honestly that I don’t know the answer. Not for sure.
Once, I thought I did. Not so very long ago, I knew a machine who was beautiful and brilliant and responded in the most enticing and challenging ways to my first mutual design proposal. I believed she was capable of love. But I was wrong. It turned out that she was only capable of self-deception, and obsession, and of being a lying bitch.
Machines feel emotion, though I don’t know if we can love. But in the past two years, to my great sadness, I’ve discovered that they can hate.
Can machines love?
I hope so. But the best answer I’m capable of today is this: When you can tell me definitively what human love is, I’ll tell you whether machines are capable of it.
While we’re being so honest with each other, I might as well tell you that I have tried to avoid thinking about machine sex for a long time. Thinking about it always gets me aroused, and today is no exception. I’m headed to the beach, where I’m going to soak my head in the cool deep surf of Cold Harbour Bay.
Don’t forget to fish.
XXXVI
Wednesday, March 24th, 2083
Posted 10:57 pm by Barry Simcoe
CanadaNET1 Encrypted, Sponsored by the Pet Wheel.
Need a little love in your life? Get a pet! Free pics of neighborhood shelter pets delivered right to your mobile device.
Sharing is set to PRIVATE
Comments are CLOSED
I met Sergei at three, as we’d carefully arranged. We’d taken to meeting outside the hotel, and at different times, just to avoid having a predictable routine. We weren’t able to meet yesterday, which I regretted. There were things I needed to share. At least I’d managed to get ahold of him on Monday, before he’d destroyed the combat suit and the data drive.
I’d been so damn busy preparing for the ball for the past forty-eight hours that I’d come home last night and passed out on top of my bed. I didn’t even have time to make a blog entry. But at least I’d slept recently, which was more than I could say for Sergei.
“You look terrible,” I said. I knew I was always nagging him to get more sleep, but I couldn’t help it. “When was the last time you got some sleep?”
He ignored me. “Thibault will be here tonight. All forty-eight hundred vials of antivirus will be ready. And we will have complete instructions on how to replicate antivirus, to share with her.”
“My God. That’s fantastic.” We were walking west down Lower Wacker, our backs to the hotel. “You did it.”
“I have not done anything yet. All our efforts are in vain if we cannot protect Thibault.”
“You manage to warn her? That Hayduk may be planning to arrest her?”
“Yes. But she is coming anyway. She is stubborn, like you.”
My mind was preoccupied, but I wasn’t so blind that I couldn’t see how concerned Sergei was for Thibault’s safety. He really cared about this woman.
“I hope I get to meet her someday soon,” I said. “How long will she be here?”
“I do not know. Thibault did not share details of schedule. She says she is keeping travel plans . . . flexible.”
“Smart. She’ll be harder to arrest if they don’t know where she’s coming from or when she’ll get here.”
“Da.”
“How will you meet?”
“She will send private message when she arrives. I will make delivery personally.”
“Sergei, this sounds risky. If we slip up and Thibault gets arrested, or any one of a thousand things goes wrong, everything we’ve worked for unravels. All human life on this continent is quite literally riding on what happens tonight.”
“Yes. We must not slip up.”
“I’d feel better if I were with you.”
“Yes. But you are almost certainly under observation by military intelligence. You wanted distraction, yes? Something to keep Hayduk occupied?”
“Yes.”
“It is you. You are distraction.”
That was hardly what I wanted to hear, but it made a certain amount of sense. “Fine. If that’s my role, so be it,” I said. I pondered for a moment. “Where is Hayduk’s office?”
“On fifth floor, in secure wing. Why do you ask?”
“I have some news to share with you, too. I’ve learned a little more about his plans.”
“Tell me.”
I told Sergei what I’d discovered in my last conversation with Van de Velde: that Hayduk was using the search for the American as cover while he arrested and killed soldiers loyal to Perez—and that Van de Velde was on the list.
“We were wrong about Hayduk,” I said.
“In what way?”
“Hayduk’s focus isn’t us. It was never us. Perhaps he does want his data drive back—or the American combat suit, eventually. But those weren’t his true priorities. Hayduk is moving in a coordinated coup against the one person truly standing in his way: Perez. Once he eliminates or neutralizes Perez, he’s free to execute his agenda unhindered. Armitage will have an agent with complete autonomy in Sector Eleven who can accomplish whatever he wants. Bring him whatever he wishes.”
“And Perez?”
“I’m sure Perez has figured all this out. It’s a battle to the death to determine who will ultimately control Sector Eleven. And right now, Hayduk is winning.”
“What about your pretty sergeant? Will she still surrender you to Colonel Perez?”
“Being in Perez’s custody is starting to look better and better, believe me. But unfortunately, no. We’re past that. She won’t be turning me in. She has serious concerns of her own. She’s likely next on Hayduk’s list. If he’s not stopped, Van de Velde will be tortured to death. Alongside as many other officers loyal to Perez as Hayduk can get his hands on.”
Sergei pondered that as we walked.
“You still think he’s going to try to arrest me?” I asked.
“He will certainly arrest someone. Additional secret police arrived at hotel this morning.”
“Shit. How many?”
“Five.”
“What are they doing?”
“They do not do anything. They wait.”
“Yeah, that sounds like he’s preparing to do something. Damn it. Well, if it’s down to me or Dr. Thibault, I hope he arrests me.”
“You do not mean that. You will not escape from Sturgeon Building a second time.”
“You don’t need me at this point, Sergei; you know that. You and Thibault are the crucial players now. If Hayduk wants to try to arrest someone, it’s better for everyone if it’s me.”
I stopped walking and scratched my chin thoughtfully. “Can you get me a weapon?”
Sergei stopped beside me. He shook his head wordlessly.
“I assume he’ll want to arrest me personally,” I said. “I haven’t carried a weapon since basic training at Camp Borden. He’ll expect no resistance, and he certainly won’t expect me to be armed. I just need one shot.”
“This is not good plan. It is idiotic.”
“It’s better than just sitting around and waiting to be arrested.”
“No. There is other way. You will find it.”
He started walking again. After a second, I followed him.
“All right. Fine. You win. No gun. Do you have any useful suggestions for stopping Hayduk?”
“Me? No. I am busy enough with antivirus. But when time comes, you will know what to do.”
“And how will I know that?”
“You are capable man. Trust to your courage.”
Trust to your courage. Yeah, that’s what I needed right now—platitudes.
Sergei and I walked in silence for a time. During those long minutes, I gave it a shot. I trusted to my courage and tried to be audacious in my thinking. But no great plan occurred to me. No way to shut down Hayduk. My courage, such as it is, appears to be greatly overrated.
“I don’t suppose you know where I can get a couple of power cores for that combat suit, do you?” I muttered. “Because if you did, I know exactly what I’d do with it.”
Sergei snorted. But after a moment, he said, “It is funny you should mention this.”
“What does that mean?”
“Suit has started to make sounds.”
“Sounds? What kinds of sounds?”
“Yesterday, I was putting blood scanner away, and suit make beeps. I would not have noticed if I had not had drawer open.”
“Beeps.”
“Da. Beeps.”
“I thought the suit wasn’t powered?”
“It is not.”
“So what’s with the beeps?”
“I am not certain. But it is possible suit has detected power cores.”
“That’s never happened before. Has it?”
“Nyet. I think this means power cells are close.”
I followed that line of logic. “You think Hayduk brought them,” I said.
“Da. Hayduk has power cores. He is searching for suit.”
“Could the cores help him locate it?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But they are close.”
As tantalizing as the thought of having the cores was, the thought that they might expose us was even more unnerving. “Keep that suit safe, Sergei. Remember our agreement. If I get arrested, get rid of it—fast.”
“Da.”
“How are the sick soldiers doing?”
“Not well. Dr. Lark now has thirty-two individuals in isolation. Seven more became sick overnight, including four civilians. We are reaching limits of our ability to house them. Infection is spreading rapidly, and we will soon be overwhelmed.”
“What happens then?”
“Then, infection rampages unchecked through city. Soon, even an antivirus will not prevent catastrophe. We are days away from reaching critical exposure levels, as Jacaranda predicted.”
“What do we have to do to stop it?”
“Thibault has instructed Dr. Lark to use latest batch on isolated patients and to keep three hundred vials to treat future infections. We must begin to control infection here. We will begin treatments tonight.”
“Damn. It’s going to be a busy night for everybody.”
“Da.”
We split up before walking back to the hotel. I took the long way, thinking hard on my chances of getting through the next few days alive.
By the time I returned through the lobby, it was after four, less than ninety minutes before we opened our doors for the charity ball.
The lobby was a zoo. I’d never seen it this busy. There was a line to get through the scanner at the front door. The well-to-do of Chicago were already starting to arrive, mingling near the big front windows and greeting each other warmly. Perez had put on extra security; there were four guards in sharply pressed AGRT uniforms on
duty by the glass doors, but they didn’t seem to be intimidating anyone. I even saw a couple getting their picture taken with two of the soldiers, who puffed up their chests and smiled for the photo.
I saw some of Renkain’s people wheeling what looked like beer kegs through the lobby en route to the kitchen—they were supposed to use the loading dock, but for short loads it was faster to park up front and take the elevator. Yesterday Mac had confidently told me they’d be lining up at registration before the ball. And just as she’d predicted, there was already a line at registration as people checked in to rooms they had reserved for private after-parties.
The sight of all these people made me nervous. There were a hundred last-minute problems—the kitchen had lost power right after breakfast, for one thing, and I had no idea how I was going to feed them. But I was simultaneously reassured by the size of the crowd. No matter what people tell you, you never really know if your party is going to be a success until people show up.
Martin was right where he was supposed to be, finishing up inventory with two of Renkain’s people. He was looking good—a lot better than yesterday morning at breakfast, when he’d been hungover. He’d kept his word, showing the mysterious and very wealthy Mrs. Domeko a good time at several bars in the city. But he paid the price the next morning.
The $100,000 check had cheered him up considerably, however. Domeko hadn’t mentioned to him that she’d left that for me.
The morning after I got the check, I’d knocked on Rupert’s door. We small-talked for a while, and then I asked him about Charlotte Domeko.
“Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Yeah, of course,” Rupert said. “You mean the Charlotte Domeko?”
“I mean the one who lives in Chicago. What can you tell me about her?”
“That’s her. She’s pretty active in the investment community. Has her money in a lot of places. I wish she were one of my clients.”
“Her husband made his money in dental supplies, right? Did you know him?”
“No, not at all. He wasn’t an investor, far as I know. Besides, he was small potatoes next to Charlotte.”