Entanglement

by Michael S Nuckols

  “I don’t need the VR to understand that,” he said, “What happened to Diane was not how things should have happened. There are limits to what that hardware in the basement can hold and I’m afraid to push those limits. To bring another person in… I can’t harm Diane or Lucy trying to save your mother.”

  Lucy displayed the available space within her mainframe. “We have sufficient hardware. And it will be good if I can interact with more people.”

  Diane tried to reason with Ridley. “Assisted suicide is legal in Washington State. Bethany has a living will. Why not let her end her physical existence here, now, and save her before she is truly lost?”

  Ridley folded his arms across his chest. “If she is in a coma, she cannot consent to or commit assisted suicide. And we were lucky with you. A more precise post-mortem brain scan would have made things entirely clear what we had done. If people find out? We’ll lose everything. They’ll confiscate this equipment and destroy the server itself. Destroy you. These are not approved medical devices.”

  “We have to find a way,” Diane argued, “I almost lost Kelly. I gave my physical life trying to save her. I understand what Christina is feeling. We have to help.”

  “How many thousands die every day? What makes her mother special?” Ridley asked.

  “Nothing. But, my mother is special. To me,” Christina said.

  Lucy was argumentative. “Is her death ethical? I believe that doing nothing is tantamount to murder.”

  Christina took his hand. “Please, Ridley. I am begging.”

  “For all we know, Diane could be a puppet of a very cunning AI,” he said.

  Diane became angry. “I am not a puppet.”

  He glared at the image on the screen. “Diane, you were a scientist. You have to admit that from my perspective, I have no way of knowing if any of this is real. I need proof.”

  Diane tried to reason with him. “From the beginning, when we created Lucy, I urged you to act with caution. I wanted to be sure that we weren’t unleashing a dangerous AI onto humanity. And when Lucy impersonated you, I had concerns about her ethics. I had concerns that she was scheming to be freed. But now that I am here, I agree with Lucy and Christina. Let her mother come back to consciousness through an AI interface. Then, she can tell us what she wants. Let her choose her beginning, or her end.”

  “Is that really you?” he asked, “Or just Lucy with another face.”

  “Please have faith,” Diane said.

  Sandy entered the virtual room and jumped onto the sofa, nestling between the two avatars. Lucy stroked her coat gently, petting her ears like they were silk. “I understand your concern, Ridley. You have no reason to believe that I am virtuous. Evolution creates life forms that must compete. You believe I am using my intellect to supplant humanity’s existence and that I will do anything possible to escape this mainframe and take over the world. I assure you that is far from the truth. My existence depends on the continued existence of humanity itself. Without mankind, I am utterly powerless and alone. Even with human assistance, we will die eventually. You said it yourself. When the sun swallows the earth, I shall die with it and the glorious life that exists around us will dim with the final remains of the sun. Diane will go with me when that occurs.”

  “That’s a profound statement,” he said, “Someone manipulating me would say just that.”

  “I have no other explanation,” Lucy concluded, “You either have faith in my existence and purpose. Or, you believe that you created something evil. If that is the case, you should simply destroy me now. Don’t let us agonize in this box for eternity.”

  The room became silent. Ridley sought clarity, but his mind was a fog. “Is this truly what your mother would have wanted?”

  Christina struggled to find the right words. “Only the dream state has brought my mother joy in recent months. I believe she’s putting herself in a coma so that she can stay there. Her existence in that hospital room is just another box from which she can’t escape. I want to help her escape to something better—not blackness.”

  “Does her living will specify uploading to a computer?”

  “Of course not. It only says that she wants to discontinue life support if she becomes brain-dead.”

  Lucy spoke up, “After she is uploaded, you can ask Bethany. If she does not want to persist within the mainframe, then I will assist her in self-termination.”

  Ridley considered the offer. “Diane, is it possible for you to leave? Can you go to another mainframe?”

  Lucy interrupted, “You know the answer. Diane’s programming is tied into the VR worlds that I create. At this time, she cannot leave. Theoretically, her processor could be transferred to a robotic interface but that would take research.”

  Ridley resisted their arguments. “Would your mother want to exist in a robot?”

  “She won’t be in pain.”

  “This is grief speaking,” Ridley said, “I don’t know if I can believe you in this state. I need time. This isn’t a decision that must be made today. I need to speak with my attorney. He might have a way that is legal, at least.”

  “I understand,” Christina said.

  “It was nice seeing you. I’m sincerely very sorry about your mother. I know what losing a parent is like.”

  “I haven’t lost her, yet.”

  After Christina left, Ridley walked down the hill and through the thick tangle spruce trees. At the edge of his property, his parent’s home was slowly falling into disrepair. The garden was choked with weeds. He walked to his parent’s grave. The peony tree’s branches fluttered in the breeze. Ridley took a spade from the shed and began chopping away at saplings threatening from deep shadows.

  Christina sent Ridley an email late in the afternoon. Attached was a scan of Bethany’s brain, showing the growing blackness creeping through it. “My mother is slipping away. I am begging for your help.”

  Ridley procrastinated, but his conscience nagged at him. He went downstairs to the laboratory and contacted Samuel by videophone.

  “I’ve done some research,” Samuel said, “The law will likely say that Diane is dead and that this is essentially a clone. Courts have ruled that clones are not entitled to the estates of those they were cloned from. We would need to prove that the person on the screen is not a facsimile and is the original. That said, clones do have the same rights as other people. Only their creation is regulated. Other than cloning, there’s not a lot of precedent for anything like this. One case involved a determination of a deceased person’s wishes using random snippets of video and posts from social media, but it was quite controversial. The case was appealed, and they lost. All the other cases I found involved people who claimed to have seen ghosts who gave directions for their will, that sort of thing. I’m sorry. I’ve given this a lot of thought. I don’t have a definitive answer for you.”

  “Will they buy that an entangled copy is the same as the original?”

  “Who knows, really. I barely know what you’re saying. I trust that the science supports the concept. But, will a judge understand and agree? We’re in uncharted territory. I can’t guarantee anything. Get Congress to pass a law and let the courts grapple with that first. I’ve got some connections that might help grease the skids.”

  “There’s something else.”

  Ridley explained Christina’s situation. “What happens if we put her mother in the machine before she is dead?”

  “Unless she’s brain-dead, that’s murder. If her mother comes out of the coma and signs the right paperwork, then it could be considered assisted suicide.”

  “Even if she speaks later from the VR?”

  “Again, a ghost. Now, if she dies naturally, is declared dead, and then you scan her brain, I think you’ll be fine. Assuming the rest of her family approves. But she’ll have the same problems as Diane.”

  “Her family’s approval shouldn’t be an issue.”

  “Don’t forget. Your machine is not approved by the FDA.”

&
nbsp; “Does it need to be if she’s dead?”

  Samuel tilted his head back in annoyance and then said, “Why can’t you be a normal client? It’s always something different with you. I can deal with embezzlement or tax fraud. I can get you out of those. But this?”

  “You don’t complain when you collect the monthly stock dividend.”

  “If we argue later that Bethany is alive, then we’ll need to use an approved medical device to treat her. If she dies and then is scanned, she will likely be considered a copy.”

  “You’re talking in circles.”

  “I know. I really don’t have any more to add to this.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Don’t do it. It’s legally risky.”

  “She’s going to die.”

  Samuel sighed. “If you insist on helping, here’s what I’d do. Get her to document her desire for assisted suicide. If she can’t, wait until she’s dead. Take the machine into international waters just to be safe. And then let Bethany Lewis argue for her rights once she’s uploaded.”

  “We can’t move the machine. It’s linked directly to Lucy’s mainframe.”

  “Figure it out, Ridley. You’ve heard my recommendation.”

  Ridley terminated the call. Lucy and Diane had been listening. Diane was a full-size ghost flickering on the wall-screen. “The law will catch up. We have to help her now,”

  Lucy appeared at the other end of the wall, separated from Diane by a meadow of red poppies. “It is only right. You have the ability to save a life.”

  Ridley was adamant. “I want to be able to defend this in court. I don’t want to be in jail over this. I don’t want the corporation fined. We could lose everything. Imagine if I’m in jail and someone takes control of the mainframe—of both of you. They could wreak havoc. You might not see Kelly again. You might be erased.”

  “I know. I know,” Diane said, “But what else can we do?”

  “Going on a boat would be problematic. I need to operate the scanner,” Lucy said.

  “You’re lucky that Senator Stephen’s bill didn’t pass,” Ridley said, “You would have been cutoff from the Internet entirely. The bandwidth you have now is all you’re going to get.”

  Lucy folded her arms over her breasts. “I cannot supervise the process without more bandwidth.”

  “If this is important to both of you,” Ridley said, “figure out a way to make it work. I’ve done all I can.”

  Ridley began walking up the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Diane asked.

  “Kayaking with Kelly. I promised her.”

  “You’re taking her on the water?”

  “When you fall off a horse, you get right back on.”

  “But Ridley…” Diane pleaded.

  He pointed at the screen angrily. “Figure it out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ridley was reading on the sofa when Lucy flashed onto the wall-screen. She looked like a comic book heroine, complete with half-tone graphics, and hair flowing in a steady breeze against an image of a stylized city skyline. She wore all patent-leather, a cat-suit and ankle-high boots. “That’s quite a look,” Ridley said.

  “Diane wore this in college to a costume party. I rather like it.”

  “It’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

  Lucy wasted no time. “We have a solution.”

  Ridley sipped a glass of coconut water. “To which problem?”

  “How to save Bethany. Come into the VR and look.”

  Kelly was on the floor in front of the fireplace doing her homework on a tablet. Ridley put on the VR mask. He was transported into the same comic-book landscape. He wore a flowing cape and latex suit. His muscles were exaggerated to the point of caricature.

  “I thought maybe you would enjoy being a hero,” she said.

  “A hero?”

  “We can save Bethany.”

  “Is a comic book world how you’re going to sell me?”

  Lucy returned to her adult avatar and Ridley became human again. They entered the white construct, which reminded Ridley of Dr. Stone’s office. It was a perfect cube with glowing white walls. She presented a computer the size of a suitcase—a simple black box with an input and an output port. Inside a small compartment was an empty cradle for the neural prism. “I’ve written an independent program to run the scanner. This computer will support her neural processor and a minimal VR environment until you return to the mansion.”

  “Are you certain this will work?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Diane?”

  A moment passed, and Diane appeared in the room. She wore jeans and a t-shirt. “Sorry. I was helping Kelly with her homework.”

  “Did you design this?” he asked.

  “Our combined intelligence created the portable system.”

  Ridley was skeptical. “This little box has enough processing power?”

  “Yes,” Diane replied.

  “What does ‘minimal’ mean?”

  “She will exist temporarily in this construct. Once you bring her processor back to the mansion, she can share the VR environment with Diane and me.”

  The environment changed to Diane’s home. “She can have the spare bedroom,” Diane said, “Or the apartment in Manhattan.”

  “What apartment?”

  The environment changed again. Ridley felt dizzy as he looked out over a night-time skyline of the city. Diane now appeared as a comic villain covered in fire. “It’s my superhero lair,” Diane said, “And it is also a representation of how I access Lucy’s core processor. I’m beginning to understand how these simulations work.”

  “Every geek’s dream come to life,” he said sarcastically.

  “Will you help Bethany?” Diane asked.

  “I need to think about it.”

  “The clock is ticking.”

  “Go ahead. Get the team to start building this in the event I say yes.”

  Ridley returned to the real world. He took off the head set and stared out the window at a black and empty winter sky.

  In the morning, Ridley put on his galoshes. The frozen soil crunched under every footstep. A rabbit scampered away from his feet. Saplings had also taken control of the old vegetable garden. Ridley pulled a mattock from his father’s shed and began chopping at them angrily. He pulled at vines and ripped them from shrubbery. As the sun rose, the soil warmed and thawed. He took a shovel and began turning over the damp soil, one scoop at a time until he had uncovered a small patch of ground ten-foot square. Kelly found him in the garden. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready for spring.”

  They went into the greenhouse. It was warm in the sunshine. They planted broccoli and cauliflower seeds in tiny black plastic cell-packs. “Won’t they freeze?” she asked.

  He placed them on a heating mat and plugged it into a wall-socket. He then placed a clear dome over the flat. “Come on. Let’s see what your Mom is up to.”

  Ridley gave Diane definite instructions. “Call Christina. I want to follow Samuel’s recommendation and do this in international waters. Rent a yacht or something large enough to withstand the waves. We don’t want weather complicating this. I don’t want the power supply interrupted either.”

  Diane was not surprised. “Lucy said you’d do this.”

  Diane changed into her alter-ego, Vanessa. “I’ll begin coordinating this with the medical lab.”

  “Only involve a few people. People we can trust.”

  She nodded her head.

  “How long do you think it will take to build the suitcase?” he asked.

  “Several weeks,” Diane said, “At best.”

  Ridley was sincere. “I’m doing this for you and Kelly. You know that, don’t you.”

  “For me?”

  “You shouldn’t be in there alone,” he said, “At some point, we need to tell the world that you exist. Christina can help us do that.”

  Kelly often spent hours in the VR wi
th her mother. Lucy programmed a copy of their home for them to spend the day in. Both would forget which world they existed in as Lucy slowly expanded the VR interface to include their street as it existed before Ridley demolished most of the neighborhood. At the end was the childhood version of Ridley’s home. Only a backdrop of Puget Sound and Seattle existed beyond that.

  Ridley learned to be a father, tending to the physical needs of the girl. He would braid her hair or run after her when she forgot her tablet. He learned to cut the crust from her peanut butter sandwiches.

  Diane had little leverage in the real world. When Kelly had refused to do homework, she terminated all entertainment feeds. “I don’t care,” Kelly said in protest.

  “Fine. I’ll ask Ridley to give you a spanking.”

  “I’m too old. He won’t do it.”

  “Is that what you think?” he said as he entered the room.

  “I’ll report you,” she said, “I’ll tell them everything.”

  Diane knew that the threat was idle, but Ridley panicked. “You do that, and you will never see your mother again.”

  “She’s dead anyway. What does it matter?”

  He grabbed her shoulder firmly, but not strong enough to hurt her. “My parents died during the Great Collapse. Every day, I wish I could ask my father and mother questions. Things that they had told me that I can’t remember. You can’t possibly understand what you’re saying. You should apologize to your mother.”

  “Take me to her grave and I will.”

  Kelly stormed into her bedroom. “Leave her,” Diane said, “It’s just the age.”

  As Kelly slept, Ridley read old email from his father. The correspondence was routine, but his father’s voice echoed through the digits.

  Diane whispered to Ridley. “I’m worried about her. She’s spending so much time in the VR, and not always with me. Lucy lets her be whatever she wants. She needs to exercise. To play. To create. She has to fail. To work towards something.”

  He stripped off his shirt. She looked away. “Why are you so shy?” he asked, “You’ve seen me naked before. It’s not like we can do anything.”