The Last Place to Stand

by Redshaw, Aaron K.

  “Yes, that's right,” said Poke. “I understand that.”

  “So, how do I go about it?” asked Odysseus.

  She smiled, and looking up at Odysseus, she said, “Well, that takes a little bit of planning.”

  Chapter 32

  The patient had not stirred that night at all, according to the cameras. Dr. Chin was in the room with him now, looking at his statistics, reading the brain activity. Now that the brain was no longer calling the shots except through the gateway of the processor, irregular activity was their main concern. But it seemed that the chip was controlling all primary functions as it ought to be. The brain was acting in a healthy, normal way, even through the intervention of the chip.

  On another bank of diagnostic screens, Dr. Chin noticed that the chip was clearly taking on some activity as well. It was analyzing the functions of the brain, certain bodily functions and capabilities, and was so far performing a basic assessment of its environment before taking much of a mental load from the patient’s own brain. This was good. It was precisely the way the chip was designed. And since the chip included the most advanced AI systems, it was learning and developing its awareness and ability.

  Yes, things were going very well.

  The Doctor checked his own chip clock. It was time for lunch. Good, he was getting hungry, and would like to sit for a while anyway. He left the room thinking of all the advancements coming up for the regular population if this experiment worked out.

  ***

  After lunch, Dr. Chin came back to see how the patient was doing. Vital signs good. Brain activity…brain activity was slowed a bit. It was not at dangerously low levels, just less. He took a look at the chip’s functionality. It had increased its activity since before lunch. It appeared that the chip was now taking on part of the load of the thought processes of the patient. That was good as well.

  He checked the patient's eyes. He was currently in REM sleep. That meant that the brain and the chip were sharing a dream. Very interesting. He never would have thought of the possibility that a chip could share in this process. There had been no AI to date that could dream. This was advancing the known science of bioengineering and AI technology. Dr. Chin recorded these observations mentally and sent a feed to the respective scientific communities who had clearance and who would benefit from the knowledge. The Operations Manager would want to know about this also, so he sent a special message to him.

  Wonderful. A good day and a good job. He might as well let the patient rest. Although his body so far seemed at rest, his mind was racing and learning. Modern technology, he thought, is an amazing thing.

  As he turned to leave the room, the patient's eyes opened. He looked in the direction of the leaving Doctor, and then closed them again.

  Chapter 33

  Sydney first had to propose. That was the way it was done Poke had said.

  So, on an evening when he could leave the children at home, he and his wife left to go outside for a walk. They loved to walk now that there was something besides the city to look at. Usually, the whole family would be reading a story out loud right about now, but today was different.

  They walked slowly for a while, going uphill toward the summit of Tumuleiah. It was only a twenty minute walk, but relaxing. They said very little to each other on the way. The sun was already going down.

  When they had reached the summit, they looked toward the house and past it. The sunset was a brilliant red, with streaked clouds in the middle of the sky. Although the city was in the distance, the gray tall buildings seemed subdued by the hand of God, looking less substantial than what was nearby. After a while, Jane spoke up. “I love it here.” Odysseus could see she had a tear in her eye. “I can't even believe it's real.”

  “It's as real as my love for you,” he said. She leaned into him and he put his arm around her. They walked over to a bench that had been set up for viewing in this area. When she sat down, Odysseus knelt on one knee. He was surprised at how nervous he felt. He hoped he didn’t mess this up. Feeling himself still too proud on one knee, he went down on the other too.

  They had talked about maybe someday doing this, but she had not thought him that serious. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “Jane,” he said, looking deep into her eyes, “will you marry me?” He held out a ring: gold with a precious stone, maybe topaz or some other light bluish stone.

  “Yes,” she said, knowing the tradition and what it meant. “But how did you get the ring?” she said.

  He smiled. “I had the smith make it. He said he does it special for lovers.”

  “I love it,” she said. “And I love you! It is so wonderful, this new life we have together. I cannot imagine any other life than this one.”

  “Neither can I,” he said. He sat down now beside her and put his arms around her for a moment and she rested in his embrace.

  “So, when do you want to get married?” he said. “I am told there is a ceremony and everything that people do. It is from a very old tradition.”

  “I would like to get married as soon as my husband learns to dress,” she said.

  He looked down. He was wearing a pair of green pants with a blue sweater. “What,” he said. “Don't you like the way I dress?”

  “Not if you dress like that,” she said. “If I'm going to be your wife, I'm going to have to teach you better.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Oh, don't treat me like that,” she said. “I just want my man to look good when he goes about.”

  “Why the change?” he said.

  “Well, before,” she said, “it was like it was my job, being your wife. I did not want to impose too much on you. But now that it’s your choice, I feel I can speak up about certain things.”

  “Hey,” he said “we're not married yet!” He gave her a smirk.

  She laughed. “So I say, let's do that as soon as we can. Does it take long to get ready?”

  “I just moved into the neighborhood,” he said. “I don't know yet. I’ll go back to my source and find out more about this custom of marriage.”

  “Great,” she said. “I look forward to it.”

  They walked slowly on, admiring the scenery. Watching birds fly overhead, they held each other. “I love this place,” she said. “Do you think it will stay this way forever?”

  “I hope so,” he said. “But you can never know. If it doesn’t, will you still be my wife?”

  “Always,” she said.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said.

  Chapter 34

  It was night time. The patient opened his eyes and looked around the room without moving his head. Cameras were stationed around the room, so he closed his eyes and waited.

  ***

  In another room, the security camera triggered a computer response program that sent a feed to the Director and the Doctor. Within a few minutes both men stood in the computer room looking over the recording. The patient had opened his eyes, but did not move his head. “Hmmm, odd,” said Dr. Chin.

  “Dr. Chin,” said the Director, “could you tell me about this?” He was pointing to the brain function monitor.

  The monitor was showing some odd patterns. “That's unusual,” said Dr. Chin. “Let's check the chip functionality.” Turning to the other bank of monitors, Dr. Chin pressed a few buttons. “Hmmm,” he said. “It appears that the chip functionality is increasing dramatically and so is the brain activity. They are growing together. Just what we had hoped.”

  “What does it mean?” said the Director.

  “It means that they are running massive parallel processes,” said Dr. Chin. “The brain is faster when linked to the circuitry, and the chip is faster when linked to the brain. They run parallel processes while solving problems.”

  “But what problem is it solving now?” asked the Director.

  “I couldn't tell you that,” said the Doctor. “That would require mind reading. I can tell you this though. The part of th
e brain that is active right now is the memory center, so perhaps the chip is analyzing these memories. I find that fascinating. In fact, I should make a note of it.”

  Having no other observations to make, Dr. Chin and the Director left for the night. The patient, lie perfectly still and muttered quietly, “Transference complete.”

  Chapter 35

  On a blue carpeted floor, T-5529 played with blocks while the child care workers watched. Watched was probably too strong a word, since most of their attention was given to receiving and sending their own feeds. They communicated with family and acquaintances, performed over-the-feed transactions and learned about trivia and interesting facts that tickled their minds. To the outside observer it looked like two women, expressionless, staring at nothing in particular in total silence. Every once in a while, they looked again in T-5529's direction to make sure she was still okay.

  T-5529 played in a small sectioned off area by a flexible gate. In the room there were four other children, also sectioned off by themselves so that caring for them would be easier and to prepare them for the world they were about to enter. When they grew up, interactions with other people would not be as important as their ability to process information, learn, and make decisions. For this reason, every child had his or her own toys that fostered these traits.

  The workers looked beyond the room, receiving feeds and checking on the children from time to time.

  When 8:00pm came, T-5529's mother came. She said hi to the ladies, and with complete cordiality, picked up her child and left. She did not talk to her daughter, as she was still finishing work over the feeds. She performed triage for a technical support firm. Once the case was assigned to the correct AI, she would move on to the next case. She was quite efficient at her job and had been steadily working her way up in the company.

  When she got home, she and her daughter stepped out of the pod and entered the house. Her husband, D1298, was already home. “Food is ready,” he said to both of them.

  Absently she said, “Okay,” in a ghost-like manner. Her mind was on finishing up the feeds for her job. She was nearing the end. They sat down to eat. She worked through most of dinner, but then suddenly, as if returning from a trip, said, “Hello, everyone. How are you?”

  “Doing well,” said D1298.

  “Good,” she said. Then she turned on another set of feeds, those used for entertainment and news. Her husband, was also going through those feeds that interested him. He was interested in the news, but was also subscribed to a learning feed. He was hoping to change careers in the future and was trying to get trained in AI programming. It was becoming a big field and would pay better than his current job.

  T-5529 sat at a quiet table with her mother and stepfather eating silently, their minds somewhere else.

  When she was done, she excused herself and went to her room to play.

  At the end of dinner, T-5529's stepfather said to his wife, “Guess what I heard today?”

  “What is that?” she responded.

  “I received a bit of news over the feed about Samuel.”

  “Really. Is he still trying to convince everyone to get out of the cities before it’s too late?” she said.

  “This feed said that he had been spotted in a junkyard with a group of people,” he said.

  “Sounds like his style,” she said.

  “He wasn't all that bad, was he?” said her husband.

  Anger flashed across her face. “He wanted to take us all out of here and have us live in the mountains or something. He wanted us to live off the land on roots and berries with no feed access. Cut off from the world!”

  “But besides that, he was okay, wasn't he?” he said.

  She stomped off into the bedroom.

  Her husband went to see how T-5529 was doing. She had a piece of paper out with some coloring sticks. She was coloring a picture of some sort. That was good creative thinking going on. A good skill to have. So far she had what looked like a man or a woman. “What is that thing?” he said, pointing to a green object over the head of the woman in the picture.

  “That's the computer that controls mommy,” she said.

  Chapter 36

  In the morning, Dr. Chin arrived at the computer room to two team members talking excitedly. One was a bioengineer and another was an AI specialist. Both often had valuable input for this venture. “What is happening?” asked Dr. Chin.

  “You tell us,” the bioengineer, H1549, said.

  “This is getting a little weird for me,” said the AI specialist. His name was A116 (He had one of those expensive short ID's.) “I love AI, don’t get me wrong, but what we are seeing here reminds me of a scary bedtime story.”

  “What do you mean?” said Dr. Chin.

  “What I mean,” said A116, “is that your patient is rewriting his wetware.”

  “What?” said Dr. Chin.

  H1549, always much more patient with explanations, spoke up. “When we came in an hour ago, we heard him, over the cameras, muttering the phrase, 'Processing and Reformatting, Processing and Reformatting.' We thought that was odd, so we looked at his brain activity. Take a look at this! It's a shot from almost an hour ago.” He clicked the history function on the screen and chose a particular segment. On the screen was a picture of the patient's brain activity. It should have been filled in with color, but it was only a dead, gray image, except for a small corner of the brain which seemed to be fully active.

  “How could he still be alive and have that little brain activity?” said the doctor.

  Impatient, A116 blurted out, “Look at the other part, then think about it!” He clicked on the resume real time button on the monitor. It showed nothing but gray with no activity at all, then one area lit up followed by another and another until most of the brain became active.

  “What does it mean?” said Dr. Chin.

  “That's what we want to know,” said H1549. “Nothing like this has ever occurred. Ever.”

  “I said, the whole thing seems like he is reformatting his memory space,” said A116.

  “I still don't get it,” said H1549.

  “Okay,” A116 said, “if a computer is to be reused, you have to get rid of what's on it. You erase every piece of data on it. Then once that is done, you begin a rewrite. You put a new operating environment on it. Then you add whatever programs you want it to have so that you can perform the tasks needed.”

  “Right,” said Dr. Chin. “Are you saying that his chip is rewriting his brain? That’s ridiculous!”

  A116 looked a little jittery, like he had had too much coffee or needed to adjust his medicine. “Yeah, yeah, that's right. When I helped design the software, one of the main feature requests was to have an AI system that would improve efficiency in speed and problem solving capability. What if the software I wrote did all I asked it to do?”

  “What do you mean?” said Dr. Chin.

  A116, excited now, like his eyes were going to pop out of his skull, looked back and forth between the two men. “What if it decided that the brain was not as efficient as it could be? Or maybe it decided that the interface could never match perfectly between the computer portion and the brain unless one was made more compatible. It might be reformatting the brain so that it functions with the same software as the main CPU. It was already artificial intelligence, so it’s learning, remember?”

  “But that can’t happen!” said H1549.

  “So you say,” said A116. “But I think that is exactly what's happening.”

  “Then here's the question,” said Dr. Chin. “If the brain was erased, does that mean the patient is dead? Brain death has always meant death.”

  “I don't exactly know.” A116 looked at the screen for a few seconds. “But for the first time ever, the brain had a full backup through the hardware we added. Even with the brain inactive, the CPU kept things going.”

  H1549 looked tired and angry. “Yes, but what about the man, his personality, who
he was? Where did he go?”

  No one had an answer. A116 just muttered to himself. “Hmmm. Hmmm.” The room was silent.

  Chapter 37

  It was warm and sunny and just after midday on the top of Tumuleiah where there lay a stretch of land that had been recently cleared of brush. White and blue flowers had been planted on two sides and were in full bloom. In the middle, a red piece of cloth stretched down between a gathering of people. Jane, in a white dress, that had taken a lot of bartering of services from Odysseus, walked down the aisle with a smile so contagious no one who looked at her could help but smile themselves. Already in front was Odysseus, wearing a black leather vest over a perfectly white long-sleeved shirt. He also smiled and he could not take his eyes off of Jane.

  As she approached, music was played by a small group of string players. The music was smooth, but lively, for this was a celebration. Recent friends and even some who were only recent acquaintances lined both sides of the aisle and stood watching her. Her walk was stately and elegant. Her face, lightly freckled, lit up as she made eye contact with Odysseus. Her hair was tied back from her face, but was a long and flowing dark brown.

  She reached the front and stood to the left of Odysseus as he held her left hand in his right and they faced the audience. The music stopped. He turned to the audience and spoke. “Friends and neighbors. We welcome you as we declare our commitment of love for one another. As you may know, in the society we came from, there was no allowance for the choice of a spouse. But from here on it is a freewill choice.”

  He turned to face her and spoke gently. “I know there was no choice in our meeting, but there was in our staying together, and for that I am grateful. From the first that I met you, I grew to love you. I realize that the meeting of the two of us together may have seemed haphazard, but it was originated by God. I now declare that you are the delight of my eyes and my heart, and I have always and will always love you.”