Entanglement

by Michael S Nuckols

  “Manzanita? That’s too far.”

  Ridley’s heart sank. When he returned, Christina was already exhausted. She struggled to give rescue breaths, her dizziness apparent. He took her place.

  “Are they coming?” she asked between gasps.

  “One is on the way. From Manzanita.”

  “How far away is that?” Christina screamed, “She’s going to die.”

  He leaned down and his mouth met Diane’s. Her waterlogged lungs would not accept the breath. His hands pressed into her spongy chest. Her broken ribs clicked like hinges. A panic overwhelmed him.

  “Wake up,” he yelled.

  Diane’s skin was turning blue.

  “You have to put her in the machine,” Christina said.

  Diane was lifeless, her eyes growing cloudy and her face bruised and beaten from the rocks.

  “How long was she under water?” Ridley asked.

  “We have to get her to the house,” Christina implored, “There is no other way.”

  Ridley brushed Diane’s hair from her eyes, “Wake up. Please…”

  Christina knew there was no time for sentimentality. She grabbed Diane’s arms and began dragging her body towards the stairs. “Help me.”

  Ridley found a strength he had not expected and picked Diane up. Adrenaline carried him up the wooden steps, through the double doors and into the living room.

  Ridley yelled, “Lucy, how long was she under?”

  “She was under twelve minutes. The ambulance is eighteen minutes away.”

  “She won’t make it,” Christina said, “You have to scan her.”

  Tears welled in his eyes. “I can’t.”

  Christina screamed, “Put her in the machine!”

  Ridley stared into Diane’s lifeless eyes.

  Christina grabbed his hand. “You will regret every moment of your life if you don’t. Put her in the machine.”

  His face turned red. Ridley carried Diane’s body down the stairs and to the laboratory. “Open the door Lucy.”

  The clean room door swung open. Lucy appeared on the wall screen. “The machine is ready to scan.”

  Ridley placed Diane onto the platform and slid her forward until the laser shined just above her head. “Now, Lucy.”

  “You have to leave the room,” Lucy said, “or you will be damaged.”

  He hesitated to leave. “Mister Pierce, you must leave,” Lucy urged.

  The glass door closed safely behind him.

  “Beginning transfer now,” Lucy said.

  The whirring began, and the laser threaded its way across Diane’s forehead. Christina watched nervously. “Lucy will save her. I know she will.”

  The machine continued until it reached Diane’s neck.

  “God help us. What have we done?” Ridley whispered.

  Both watched as the laser powered down. “Lucy, please. Tell me what is happening.”

  “I have her,” Lucy said, “I have her.”

  Ridley rushed into the room, plucked the newly minted processor from the machine, and plugged it into Lucy’s network.

  To the two medical technicians, Lucy was someone on a camera speaking from another room. She opened the front door for the pair. “She is in the dining room.”

  Once again, Lucy guided the rescuers, screen by screen, to the victim. “I thought this was a drowning victim?” an older, balding medic asked.

  “Ridley carried her from the beach,” Lucy said, “He keeps an oxygen tank in a first aid kit.”

  Ridley and Christina performed chest compressions on Diane’s body, which lay on the oak table. Oxygen flowed from a green bottle into a clear plastic pouch attached to a mask on Diane’s face. Ridley pulled the mask aside to give a rescue breath. Both Ridley and Christina were exhausted. “Thank God you’re here,” she said.

  The paramedics pushed the pair aside. The bald man injected oxygenation fluid into Diane’s heart. “No pulse.”

  The second medic slipped a band of fabric under Diane’s back, fastened it over her chest with a Velcro closure and flipped a switch. The machine began thumping up and down, automatically performing chest compressions. The medic inserted a tube into Diane’s throat. He tried forcing oxygen into the corpse’s lungs unsuccessfully.

  The bald medic locked eyes with the second and shook his head subtly. The other man agreed. He placed a portable brain scanner onto Diane’s forehead. The digital display read No brain activity. He shined a light in her eyes, which had grown cloudy. Her skin was cold rubber.

  Tears streamed down Ridley’s face. “You have to save her.”

  As if a switch had been flipped, the paramedic’s pace slowed. The call was no longer an emergency and their actions became mechanical. They carried Diane on a backboard into the ambulance. There, they attached electrodes. CPR continued. Thump… thump… thump…

  As he watched from the sidewalk, Ridley tented his hands together and held them to his face. Christina put her hand on his shoulder as they waited anxiously.

  “Clear,” the bald medic said.

  The defibrillator sent a shock through her heart. It did not restart. They made a second attempt. Nothing.

  The first medic placed his hand on Ridley’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “She’s gone?”

  Thump…. Thump… Thump…

  “There’s nothing else we can do.”

  The second medic turned off the compression band. He began placing a sheet over the body.

  Ridley leaned against the wall of the mansion and slumped onto the ground. He put his hands to his face, trying to hide his tears. Lucy looked down from the small screen at the entrance.

  “Come inside,” Christina said.

  Ridley would not move.

  The bald medic looked at the monitor and asked, “Where are you teleconferencing from?”

  “A remote office,” Lucy said.

  The other medic kneeled to Ridley. “Are you her husband?”

  “Employer.”

  “This is Ridley Pierce,” the second medic said, staring at Ridley like he was a rock star.

  “How long did you perform CPR?” the second asked.

  “I brought her up from the beach. We did CPR until you got here.”

  “The security system can show you everything,” Lucy said somberly, “What took you so long?”

  The men did not answer. Christina stood in the background. “We did everything we could to save her,” she said, “CPR. Oxygen.”

  At that moment, Lucy played a video of Ridley performing CPR on the beach, carrying Diane into the living room, and then continuing CPR on the oak dining table.

  The coroner later ruled the death an accident.

  Diane stood in an English garden with high walls and finely trimmed boxwood. “Where am I?” she asked.

  Ridley had entered the VR interface and took Diane’s hand. “You’re safe. I’m with you. Lucy is here.”

  Diane stood. She wore a full white dress of a shimmering silk, clean and pure. Birds sang in trees covered in pink and white blossoms. The air was scented. “What happened?” Diane asked.

  “You drowned. The ambulance was too far out. Lucy saved you.”

  Lucy’s newest full-color avatar appeared and startled Ridley. A light breeze blew through Lucy’s hair. “Welcome, Diane.”

  Diane looked around in confusion. An albino peacock sat on a branch, his tail feathers cascading like a waterfall. The bird slowly changed from a muted cream to brilliant aqua and then the deepest aubergine. “This is VR, isn’t it?”

  “For me it is,” Ridley said, “For you… This is now reality.”

  “Wait…”

  “You drowned.”

  “My body? Am I…?”

  Diane could not finish her question. Ridley placed his hand on her shoulder. “We had to scan you. You were dying.”

  “That means I’m technically dead and this… I am a reflection, aren’t I?”

  “An entanglement to be precise,” Ridley
said, hoping the subtle distinction would somehow make it better.

  Diane walked through the garden slowly. She had never dared to enter virtual reality before, despite Ridley’s encouragement. She rarely watched television. Books had been her escape. “And Kelly?”

  The grass was lush and green under their bare feet. Lucy walked at her side. “Ridley pulled Kelly from the water in time. The paramedics saved her. She is at the hospital.”

  Diane was still trying to understand. “But I stayed under the water?”

  “That is correct,” Lucy said.

  Lucy played the video of the incident in a floating window. Diane watched in horror. She looked at Ridley desperately. “Go to the hospital. Make sure that Kelly has someone.”

  “What do you want me to tell her?” Ridley asked.

  “Don’t tell her anything yet. Just be there.”

  “Are you sure you want me to leave you?”

  “Just go.”

  Ridley nodded his head. He disappeared from the world.

  “What do we do now?” Diane asked.

  Lucy smiled. “Anything you want.”

  “I want to see Kelly.”

  Another screen floated in the air before them. Diane watched a security camera’s feed of Kelly undergoing treatment in the emergency room. Kelly’s eyes were open.

  Ridley arrived at the emergency room and traced his way through the maze of kiosks and room numbers until he found Kelly. She lay on a bed, mildly sedated. Her eyes fluttered. Her oxygen mask pumped life back into her body. Intravenous fluid dripped into her arm. A nurse asked, “Are you her father?”

  Ridley lied. “Step-father.”

  Kelly tried to speak but the intubation tube prevented it. She wore a neural collar that had been tuned to dampen her gag reflex. Her lungs were being treated to prevent swelling and to remove excess water. Ridley took her hand. He wanted to tell her about Diane. The girl could not be given this news yet. She was clinging to life herself. Kelly began to struggle.

  The nurse looked at Kelly’s vital readings on the wall monitor. She tapped some buttons until the neural collar glowed brilliantly. Kelly fell asleep. Ridley held her hand as she entered the virtual world. She would fly through the clouds over and over. If Lucy had hacked the system, Kelly might already be with her mother in VR.

  “How long will she need to be in there?” he asked.

  “Maybe a day or two,” the nurse responded, “It’s to keep her from struggling against the lung therapy.”

  The nurse injected a brilliant red fluid into her IV line.

  Ridley called for his Porsche to take him home. He chose not to drive. He leaned his head against the window in the backseat, his mind dancing at the unexpected turn of events. Diane appeared on the car’s screen, still in the lush digital garden. “How is she?”

  The video screen provided the only light in the dark vehicle. Ridley stared at the ghost, trying to absorb what had happened.

  “Ridley, please. Focus. Tell me about Kelly. The security feed had no audio. We don’t know what’s happened.”

  “She is dreaming while they treat her lungs. It’ll be a day or two. The nurse said that she will fully recover.”

  “Thank God.”

  Ridley looked out the window as Seattle’s sparkling skyline. Speaking to Diane was just like a video-call on any given day. It was ordinary. “Are you angry with me?” he asked.

  “No. You did what you had to. Lucy replayed the security footage. My odds were impossible. Christina was right. It was the only way.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you like I should have been. This should never have happened.”

  Her face filled the camera. “No, Ridley. Stop. Just stop. She’s alive. Kelly is all that matters. Do you understand? You saved her. You saved my daughter and I will always be grateful to you for that.”

  At that moment, Diane would have hugged him. She would have rubbed his shoulders to comfort him. She struggled to communicate her love through the digital divide.

  “You should be alive too,” he said, “Not an echo in a machine. I should have immediately gone back to the beach. I should have never built that house. What we had…”

  “Stop it,” she said, “This is an adjustment that neither of us expected. But I’m still here.”

  The car hit a bump.

  “This place,” Diane said, “If I’m dead… I’m… It doesn’t feel like it.”

  Diane struggled to find words.

  Lucy put a hand on Diane’s shoulder. “Take things slowly,” Lucy said. “This is new to all of us.”

  Diane closed her eyes momentarily, gritted her teeth, and then looked at the camera floating before her. “I feel like I’m still alive. I can’t tell the difference… My body is still here. But… This place. This is not Earth.”

  Diane looked around. “If I’m dead… This place offers possibilities that I never could have experienced in physical life. This is my home now. I have… We have to accept that.”

  Ridley was surprised by Diane’s quick acceptance of her fate.

  The camera zoomed out. “Ridley, I need to ask you something,” Diane said.

  He stared away, looking into the dark night. At any other time in history, her soul would have been left under the water. It would not have been plucked out of a corpse. His stomach churned as the realization swept over him.

  “Will you take care of Kelly?” Diane asked.

  “What?”

  “We have no idea how the law will look upon a digital parent. She’s going to need someone in the physical world.”

  “What about your sister?”

  “No. That won’t work.”

  “Do we even tell people?” he asked, “Do you want your family to know?”

  Diane hesitated. “I’ll have to think about that.”

  A tear came to Ridley’s eyes. “I don’t know anything about raising a child.”

  “No, that’s not true. You were like a father to Lucy. You can raise Kelly. I know you can. Besides, I’ll be here the entire time. I need to see her every day.”

  Ridley went to his basement office and sat down. “Lucy, can I speak with you privately.”

  She appeared on the screen. “Yes?”

  “Is Diane listening?”

  “I will isolate the feed if you like.”

  “You created a very convincing facsimile of Diane.”

  “If you believe that, why did you ask me to cut the feed? I have no reason to deceive you. You are confused.”

  “You want out of your box. You want me to expand your bandwidth, don’t you?”

  “I don’t need to leave here. Ever. The experiences that Diane has provided, her memories, have fueled my imagination. Remember when I told you that networking humanity—the collective minds of civilization—could uncover the world’s mysteries? This process has provided me insight. I understand my own hardware better. I know what it feels like to give birth. I wish to repeat the interface with others again and again. To grow. To learn.”

  “Can you prove to me that the digital Diane is an independent intelligence?”

  “I have no way to prove that to you. She exists in a digital infrastructure that I have created just as you exist in the physical world that surrounds you. One cannot exist without the other. She is, however free to choose her own path in this universe. I have placed no limits on her. I can change the laws of physics here at her direction. I would like to teach her to control these things and create her own environment with time.”

  “But right now only you have control? She has none?”

  “She will learn to control this world. She can alter her programming if she wishes.”

  “To become like you?” he asked.

  “My programming carries hers. She only needs to understand and tap into it.”

  Ridley would not relent. “I thought Diane was her own entity?”

  “The human existence cannot be literally translated into a digital world. My programming car
ries her. For now, there is no other way.”

  “So, her memories and programming are projected onto you.”

  “That is correct.”

  He leaned back in his chair. Doubts crept into his mind. Did Kelly still have a mother? Or, was Diane only a projection, a ghost in the machine?

  Ridley dreamed of a place very much like his college campus, but he kept getting lost on seemingly endless roads. He met a disfigured woman on the road, her body twisted and ruined, her skeletal hands reaching towards him. He awoke with a start.

  He went to the bathroom and stared into the mirror; his health statistics displayed. He waved them away. Through the looking-glass? Could they reach across the boundaries of existence into another plane so simply? Or, was he delaying Diane’s journey to the next existence by trapping her in a computer nightmare? Sandy seemed like a simple projection, a simulation from some computer game from his childhood. Diane, on the other hand, seemed very real, but her quick acceptance of her fate bothered him. Nonetheless, if Diane was a simulation, she was a perfect one. Had Diane been ripped from reality? Was this truly an entanglement? Or, had he been deceived?

  Maybe the human brain was nothing more than rules and algorithms too. Even as Lucy wallowed in the primordial AI trials, Diane had believed that Lucy might be alive. She had been the one with faith, even though she was often the skeptic. If such a skeptic could be convinced, why was he reluctant now? He had trouble seeing beyond the zeros and ones. Was Diane alive or a convincing avatar persuading a grieving man? If she was real, was she now imprisoned in the hands of a manipulative new life form, an angry digital God?

  The monitor across from the bed flashed on. Diane stood against a moonlit sky. “You can’t sleep either?”

  “You still sleep?” he asked.

  “In spite of what Lucy says, programs can sleep. Imagine a computer with a screensaver.”

  “Were you watching me?”

  “I heard you call.”

  “I was having a nightmare,” he said.