“Everyone, if we can take a moment…” Samuel said.
Ridley ignored him. “You should have had your tubes tied the minute the government offered.”
The mother lunged across the table towards him. Her attorney grabbed her shoulder. “Sandra… Settle down. Settle down. This is not how we resolve this.”
“He has billions of dollars,” the mother pleaded, “He knew what could happen.”
“This is over,” Ridley yelled as he stepped away the table and walked towards the window, “Get her out of my building.”
Samuel stepped between the angry litigants, holding his stout arms out like an umpire. “I don’t think we’re going to reach a settlement today. Let’s adjourn.”
The opposing attorney ushered the distraught mother towards the door. “I’m sorry we didn’t make any headway. Thank you for coming today,” Samuel said.
The female attorney nodded to Samuel knowingly. The angry mother glared at the indifferent billionaire as she left the room. Ridley avoided her gaze and adjusted his tie and collar. Mount Rainier glistened with fresh snow, an occurrence that had not been seen in decades. Cars hummed through the parking lot forty stories below.
Diane finally sent a text. Christina wants another interview.
Ridley replied. Tell her I am unavailable.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the glare of solar glass. Dark circles screamed from under bloodshot eyes. Should he have listened to Diane about the VR?
Samuel stood by the door. “You okay?” he asked.
“Why did you insist that I get dressed in this clown suit and waste my time here today? The corporation should have handled this.”
“You were named personally in the lawsuit. I thought maybe…”
“I didn’t sell a headset to her. The corporation did. You knew we weren’t going to reach a settlement. Twenty-five-million dollars? Seriously. I feel bad for her, I really do, but there is no way I’m going to pay her a dollar.”
“Today’s meeting was an act of good faith. Besides, settling might save us some more bad publicity. After that woman starved to death…”
“That wasn’t our fault either.”
Samuel tried to gild the failure for his boss. “I thought it best to suspend talks for the day anyway. Make them think we’re heading for court.”
Ridley took off the necktie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “The warning labels are clear. If you go into the VR, somebody must watch over you. It’s in the manual. It’s written on labels on the headsets. You get a warning when you download the VR feeds. For God’s sake, that’s why we have still VR pods and cafes—so that a single woman doesn’t get raped in the real world while she’s getting diddled in a neural recording.”
Samuel gathered his tablet and coffee cup. “Not everyone knows that. They’re going to argue the warnings weren’t clear enough.”
“Isn’t that your job?”
“I’m just stating the case they’ll make.”
Ridley took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves. “How many more warnings could we have put on the product? She didn’t even have a smoke detector in her house. Had she been there, she could have pulled the plug and disconnected them from the feed. They’d be alive.”
“The children wouldn’t have heard a smoke detector.”
“Exactly. That was her job.”
Samuel’s early shares had increased exponentially since the VR technology was first licensed. He was representing himself as much as the corporation. “They don’t have a case but we need to be practical. You know that the media is going to go crazy with this. I can see the headlines now. Two children Burn to Death during Candy Race VR. Ridley Pierce Sheds No Tears.”
“It wasn’t Candy Race.”
“Fine. The wizard of whatever.”
“It was Hansel and Gretel.”
“The point is that the public is beginning to look at VR like they did drugs. Politicians want to start restricting its use.”
“VR is lawful and safe,” Ridley countered, “It has no physical side effects on the body.”
“You’re preaching to the choir. But we can’t let conspiracy theories get planted.”
Ridley folded his tie and put it into his pants pocket. “Isn’t that what settling will do?”
“Not if I could have gotten them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. All of this would have gone away.”
“My technology changed the world. They don’t understand…”
“Ridley, why don’t…”
“…why VR even works. All they want to do is tear into me. A crack-addict Mom decides to use the VR for a virtual baby sitter because she’s too busy to deal with her kids.”
“Ridley…”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Just stop. Yelling does no good.”
Ridley took a deep breath and exhaled.
“We’ll work through this,” Samuel said, “Why don’t we get lunch? How about some cultured sushi downtown? My treat.”
Ridley looked him in the eye. “I am not paying her a penny.”
“Let me handle things. I’ll make this go away.”
Ridley’s throat was parched. “Do you have some water?”
“I’ll get you a pouch.”
“Never mind,” Ridley said, “I’m already late. I’ve got to get home.”
Ridley began walking towards the door.
“One other thing,” Samuel said.
Samuel’s face was grim.
“What?” Ridley asked.
“House Bill 315 passed committee yesterday. It will be put up for a vote tomorrow morning.”
“You’re just telling me this now?”
“I thought you knew. Senator Stephens…”
“That Bible thumper…?”
“…is intent on eliminating all AI access to public networks. There is a growing movement against Lucy. People don’t like that she’s introduced full VR. After her announcement… They are becoming afraid of her.”
“I thought you were going to stop it?”
“I tried. People are still scared.”
“Does the man even use a computer?”
“I’m sorry, Ridley.”
“She won’t like this.”
Chapter Twenty
Diane and Ridley sat on a boulder at the edge of the rocky beach. A drone had delivered a lunch of smoked chickpea patties with creamed cheese on bagels. The surf was rough; a light breeze threatened to turn into a storm. Whitecaps erupted on the water.
“Samuel is trying to talk me into pursuing Lucy’s hare-brained idea, if it’s even possible to build the hardware.”
“R&D is working on a way to mass produce her processor,” Diane said, “They found a better way to keep the prisms from overheating.”
“Oh?” he asked, “Why didn’t I hear about that?”
“You’ve not exactly been engaged with the lab at Cerenovo.”
In the distance, a wave broke. Ridley leaned back and stared at the clouds.
“Even if we can duplicate her processor on a larger scale,” she said, “A functioning human mind—that’s a lot of data.”
“Is it?” he asked.
She zipped up her windbreaker and brushed stray hair from her eyes. “I would think so.”
“Can you remember your first birthday?” he asked.
“No, but our brains aren’t developed at that age.”
“How about your sixth, eleventh, and twelfth?”
She thought for a moment. “No, not really.”
“Describe your favorite birthday.”
“I don’t have a favorite one. I do remember that Mom made me a cake that was lopsided. It fell over when I blew out the candles.”
He balled up the wax paper his sandwich had been wrapped in and threw it into a paper sack. “That was a special day. Something out of the ordinary happened. That’s why you remember it. People don’t store memories of their entire lives. We store the emotional high points and we sum
marize the things that repeat over and over. Our brains are lot like Lucy’s. We prioritize data for storage. We delete things we don’t use. Consider how we interact in the world. Breathing. Walking. Riding a bike. Even things like aversion to pain or enjoying the taste of sugar. You don’t consciously think about those. Those are our subroutines—simple algorithms that are basically the same for everyone.”
Diane did not finish her sandwich, carefully re-wrapping it and saving it for later. She grabbed a napkin that was about to blow away. “My grandmother died from cancer when I was six. They could have saved her today. She used to take me to church on Sundays. Before she died, she told me I’d see her in heaven.”
He put his hands in the front pockets of his hoodie. “Did you believe her?
“I wanted to. I wanted to march through the clouds and see her again. All those stories about heaven and angels… everything all white and shiny. It sounded so inviting. It just seems so preposterous now. A gilded cage.”
“Isn’t that what Lucy is proposing?” he asked, “Our few years on this planet are bound by the laws of physics. In a computer, none of that applies. Anything can happen. Imagine finally being free of our bodies.”
“But it’s not real.”
Charcoal clouds loomed; the line on the horizon blurred. His eyes could not focus. “To think that we could just copy a person. There are so many ethical implications. Is it hubris to even consider this?”
She smiled. “Probably… But you have to ask if a copy is the same as the person? What is real anyway? Quantum physics says we might be in a simulation right now, that all of this is just another holographic projection.”
Diane had always enjoyed playing Devil’s advocate. The discussion reminded Ridley of their heated debates many years earlier. Diane had challenged him to use molten silicon carbide for the processor. She had been right about allowing the AIs access to external code, rather than forcing them to develop their own. He had been right about pushing Lucy to the point of failure. Their progress had continuously amazed him. Now, they discussed something that would be pivotal in human history. He imagined Oppenheimer’s thoughts before building the atomic bomb. He knew that Lucy would work to solve the problem of death until it was resolved. She would not be stopped.
Ridley plucked a glass bottle from the beach. The green glass gleamed, unbroken despite the ocean’s tumult. “We’re really talking about transcendence,” he said, “The next step in evolution. The world has been moving towards this since life began. Our machines are beginning to work in ways that we don’t understand. For the first time, we might actually be able to cheat death.”
“Cheat or postpone? We will always be bound to the physical world.”
He simply shrugged. “All of this is conjecture,” he said, “I supposed that it’s foolish to get caught up in Lucy’s daydreams. The Hawking Probe. Space Exploration. That should be her primary concern.”
She stood and wiped crumbs from her jeans. “Are you ready to head back? I’m getting chilly.”
He stood, still clutching the bottle in his hand. As they walked along the beach, the first raindrops peppered their shoulders.
Ridley waited in Dr. Stone’s lobby for his annual examination and follow-up. Samuel’s photo appeared on his phone.
“Tell me you have good news.”
The lawyer wore a bright crimson silk tie and was grinning. “I do,” he said, “They only want $100,000 and an apology.”
Ridley did not want to have the discussion in the waiting room. He whispered, “I will not apologize.”
“It’s a minor concession to a woman who lost her kids.”
“She killed them. Not me.”
“Ridley…”
“Let her sue. I’ll spend my fortune fighting a lie. This is wrong.”
“I strongly recommend you take this deal.”
“The VR did everything it was designed to do.”
“Lawyer fees will be more than $100,000. This is a bargain. This is a pittance.”
“The kids didn’t feel a thing as their brains…”
“Do the math.”
“… ran out of oxygen. Not a bad way to go, honestly.”
“Ridley. Stop. Just listen. She’ll sign a gag order.”
“What good will a gag order do? It’s already in the news.”
“A trial will be much worse.”
Ridley looked out the window at the busy street. Lucy needed him; he had no time for a lawsuit. “Fine. I don’t have time to deal with this anyway.”
Ridley had just finished his morning run and walked into his bedroom.
“Would you come visit me?” Lucy asked.
Ridley hesitated. Diane had not arrived, and he feared being caught in the machine. He thought of the two children burning to death. “If I ask you to release me, will you do so?”
“Yes,” Lucy said.
Her assurance did little to calm he nerves as he put on the device. He stood in a white box that Lucy called the construct. She appeared as the little girl who bowled on his family lawn with him. Her hand was warm and her chest heaved up and down. There were no digital artifacts. She had form and depth. Her shadow followed from the digital sun overhead.
“You’ve improved your avatar,” Ridley said.
“Do you like this presentation?”
“It’s appropriate for you.”
“But do you like it?”
“Yes, I do.”
She displayed an illustration of a new device.
“What is this?” he asked.
The device floated from the wall to the floor and then grew until it filled the room.
Ridley stood next to a virtual version of a complex machine. He walked around a donut-shaped chamber. The machine appeared simple, its case undulating in smooth white curves. Lucy opened a cover, revealing interior components. At its core was a removable neural processor that shimmered. “This will transfer the human mind in its entirety into a neural processor,” she said as she took his hand, “I implore you to build this.”
He stared at the inside of the machine. “It will take decades just to understand how this works.”
“Why is human understanding required?”
“There may be unintended consequences.”
“Such as?”
“We don’t understand dark matter and energy very well. What if we accidentally cause a cascading collapse of atomic structure in the brain itself? A person under this device could be killed.”
“Why would that matter? The scanner will indeed destroy all brain tissue. The person will survive in the prism.”
Ridley imagined his brain being ripped into as he sat in the VR. Could Lucy use the neural headset to scan him? Was this machine really a distraction while she uploaded his brain? Was the white cube what someone would see when they entered a permanent VR existence? He wanted to exit immediately, but calmed himself. Only Lucy could release him from the VR. If he was being scanned, there was nothing he could do.
“It is unethical to kill people to save them.”
“Why?” Lucy asked.
“Because a copy is not the original. You are killing the original.”
She took his hand and looked at him with sad eyes. “The original is being transferred into a new brain. Please, Ridley. We must build this,” she pleaded, “It is the only way to save you. To save the dead.”
“We will explore this technology methodically.”
She was insistent. She placed both hands over his. “Scans have shown brain activity as long as ten minutes after death. Can we not scan someone who has just died?”
Ridley paused. “We don’t know when people will die. It would be very difficult to catch someone at the right moment. Ethically, this is challenging. It sounds illegal as well.”
“Isn’t it worth trying?” she pleaded, “It seems very unfair to abandon the dying.”
He paced the small room. “Science proceeds methodically. We have to test the individual pieces of this and then combin
e them.”
Lucy became stern. “You are wrong. Science has always moved ahead in giant bursts. Newton and gravity. Darwin and evolution. Time in here is different,” she said, “My processing capability is equivalent to decades in your time.”
“Terminate this simulation, Lucy. I will consider your request.”
“You haven’t said yes to me.”
“Terminate the simulation… Now.”
Chapter Twenty-One
As he rested on the sofa, Ridley studied the designs for the brain scanner on a tablet. Lucy had coupled the basic neural recording headset with an MRI and a dark field sensor. It would probe not only signals but recreate the accompanying physical infrastructure in a virgin neural prism. Individual neural connections, the quantity of neurochemicals, and their states would be recorded. Other medical applications came to mind. Could the system be used to alter neurons? Change memory? He thought back to the crude surgery that Dr. Stone had performed on him.
Diane entered the mansion with two sacks filled with Chinese food. “I figured you’d be working in the laboratory.”
Kelly tugged at her mother’s hand. “Can I visit with Lucy?”
“No, you haven’t eaten yet,” Diane replied, “Into the kitchen. You too, Ridley. When was the last time you ate a real meal?”
He was hesitant to put down the tablet. “Yesterday, I think.”
“Come on,” Diane insisted, “You need a break.”
Diane opened the bags and put the containers, paper plates, fortune cookies, and cheap wooden chopsticks onto the table. “I got you General Tso’s chicken, extra spicy, with fried rice.”
Ridley took a seat. “Thanks.”
She motioned to her daughter, “And, of course, chicken and broccoli for you.”
Lucy’s childlike avatar followed them into the room. She looked down at them longingly as they ate. Diane spooned rice onto her daughter’s plate, followed by a helping of the chicken. Kelly sat down at the table, poured a dab of soy sauce onto her food, and attempted to use a pair of chopsticks. Diane showed the girl how to hold chopsticks properly. “Like this,” she said.
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